INDIANAPOLIS — Vice President Mike Pence returned exuberantly to the Statehouse Friday for a celebration of his four-year term as Indiana's 50th governor and the unveiling of his official portrait.

The image, painted by artist Mark Dillman, of Indianapolis, shows the white-haired Pence with a partial smile. He is half-seated on the governor's office desk wearing a blue suit with an open jacket, blue shirt and striped blue tie designed by his wife, Karen.

Indiana and United States flags fill much of the space behind him, while alongside him on the desk are law books that belonged to his late father, a photograph of his family and the open Bible that always held a place of prominence while he was working.

"It's deeply humbling for me to think that this image will be added to the historic collection here at the Statehouse," Pence said. "It is my great honor to join them (all the former governors) in this Pantheon of public service in the state of Indiana."

The Republican was at times during his 19-minute speech both casually humorous and unexpectedly emotional.

Pence drew huge laughs when he insisted, "I do have more than one tie," since the tie he was wearing identically matched the tie in his portrait.

But Pence also appeared to hold back tears as he said he was departing shortly for Washington, D.C., "to continue to stand by a president who is making America great again every single day.

"As I leave, it just blesses our hearts to think that this portrait will be hanging where our hearts will always be ... where the moon shines bright upon the Wabash," Pence said.

"And until we come back home again, I pray that God will continue to bless the great state of Indiana and all who go by the name Hoosier."

The former governor did not say much about his time in office or list all that he accomplished as Indiana's chief executive.

Instead, he repeatedly expressed gratitude to the people of Indiana for giving him the honor of serving as their governor and for the opportunities he had growing up in the state.

"We were all raised to believe that anybody could be anybody in this country. That if you work hard, pray harder, you look after your family, you grab your dreams — the sky is the limit," Pence said.

"Let me say that wherever we go in our lives, in our service for the next seven-and-half years as vice president of the United States or beyond, I want the people of Indiana to know that you're always in our hearts and the depth of our gratitude is inexpressible."

Gov. Eric Holcomb introduced the man he used to serve as lieutenant governor, but reminded the audience that his relationship with Pence goes back more than two decades to their shared experiences as students at Hanover College.

He said no matter where Pence goes he remains the servant-leader he's always been — "that same Mike that I met all those years ago."

State Sens. Ed Charbonneau, R-Valparaiso, and Mike Bohacek, R-Michiana Shores, were among dozens of elected officials and dignitaries in attendance, including U.S. Sen. Todd Young, R-Ind.; U.S. Reps. Luke Messer, R-Shelbyville, and Todd Rokita, R-Brownsburg; U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Jerome Adams, the former state health commissioner; former Lt. Gov. Sue Ellspermann; and former Attorney General Greg Zoeller.

Charbonneau spoke briefly with Pence following what he described as an "absolutely fantastic" speech.

He said he was impressed Pence still remembered many of the health and environmental legislation they worked on together.

Former Lake Superior Judge Mary Beth Bonaventura, who served Pence as director of the Department of Child Services and has remained in that post under Holcomb, said the "beautiful" portrait of her former boss "really captures the essence of Mike Pence."

"We miss him here in Indiana, and I hope he takes to Washington — and has taken to Washington in the short time he's been there — the valuable and heartfelt things he's done here in Indiana," Bonaventura said.

Pence's portrait will be installed Thursday in the governor's reception room alongside paintings of the seven most recent former governors.

The other gubernatorial portraits, which are maintained by the Indiana State Museum, are on display in meeting rooms and offices throughout the Statehouse.

Accomplishments: As the first governor, Jennings began the process of making Indiana a full-fledged state by establishing a court system, organizing public schools, creating a state bank and planning road and other infrastructure improvements.

He was not entirely successful due to Indiana's limited financial resources and Hoosier opposition to taxes.

A slavery opponent, Jennings persuaded state lawmakers to prohibit the seizure of free black Hoosiers to sell into slavery, but he also endorsed heavy fines for people caught helping slaves escape to freedom in Indiana.

Lt. Gov. Christopher Harrison attempted to depose Jennings in 1818 after the governor was appointed by President James Madison to negotiate a land relinquishment treaty with the Miami Indians on behalf of the federal government. Harrison claimed the state constitution prohibited the governor from simultaneously holding federal office, and thus Jennings vacated his post.

The Legislature refused to consider the matter, and Jennings defeated Harrison in 1819 to win a second three-year term.

He resigned shortly before his term expired after being elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, where he supported federal funding to improve roads and river navigation through Indiana.

Other offices held: Warrick County treasurer, 1813-16; state representative, 1816-17; state senator, 1818-19; lieutenant governor 1819-24 (except for 84 days as governor); U.S. Rep., 1825-27, 1829-39

Accomplishments: Boon became governor following the resignation of Gov. Jonathan Jennings and "accomplished virtually nothing," according to historian Carl Kramer.

During his brief stint as the state's chief executive, Boon persuaded the General Assembly to add three House seats and one Senate seat for the new residents living in the central Indiana region recently ceded by the Miami Indians.

One month prior to becoming governor, Boon was re-elected lieutenant governor with Gov.-elect William Hendricks — enabling him to return to his former post after he finished Jennings' term. Boon nearly became governor again in 1824 but had resigned as lieutenant governor two days before Hendricks resigned, after both were elected to Congress.

In the U.S. House, Boon was a strong supporter of President Andrew Jackson and helped build the Democratic Party in Indiana.

He lost his House seat in 1839 and moved to Missouri to challenge that state's pro-slavery leadership. Boon died before he could mount a successful run for office in Missouri.

Accomplishments: A popular politician from the state's earliest days, Hendricks remains the only candidate for Indiana governor ever to run unopposed.

He inherited a state struggling to get out from under a $4,000 annual deficit and $25,000 debt after credit tightened during the Panic of 1819.

Hendricks righted the state's finances by improving tax collections and selling public lands, leaving Indiana with a balanced budget and reduced debt when he resigned in 1825 to serve in the U.S. Senate.

Hendricks championed road and canal projects at the state and federal levels to make it easier for Hoosiers to bring their homegrown products to market.

He personally organized the territorial and state laws into the first Indiana Code, though he controversially included a provision requiring any person speaking ill of the state's government or its officers be fined $500.

Hendricks also signed the law moving the state capital from the Ohio River town of Corydon to Indianapolis.

Accomplishments: The resignations of Gov. William Hendricks and Lt. Gov. Radliff Boon, following their 1825 elections to Congress, propelled James B. Ray, the state Senate president, into the governor's office at age 30 — the youngest governor in Indiana history.

Ray was elected governor in his own right later that year and re-elected to a second, three-year term in 1828. During his tenure, Ray saw the population of Indiana grow to 345,000 from 240,000, a 44 percent increase.

To accommodate the new Hoosiers, Ray promoted the return of free blacks to Africa and inked treaties with the Miami and Potawatomi Indians that forced the tribes from the northern third of the state. He then oversaw construction of the Michigan Road through those lands, eventually linking Lake Michigan with Indianapolis and on to the Ohio River.

At a time when Hoosier lawmakers and business leaders were investing heavily in canals as the future of transportation, Ray tried in vain to persuade them railroads were a cheaper, more efficient option.

He permitted the sale of state-owned lands to fund local public schools and elevated the state seminary at Bloomington into a college, now Indiana University.

Ray's willingness to claim allegiance to both political parties while posing as an independent repeatedly caused him headaches. He was falsely accused of bribe-taking by state Treasurer Samuel Merrill in 1827 and nearly impeached by the General Assembly for treaty negotiating on behalf of the federal government while holding state office.

Ray's final years as governor were unproductive as he believed the Legislature was allied against him, while lawmakers contended Ray was a hothead and unable to handle criticism.

Ray was the first governor to serve in the new capital at Indianapolis, but refused to live in the Governor's Mansion located in the center of the city, claiming it lacked privacy. The Indiana Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument now stands at that site.

Other offices held: Franklin County sheriff, 1820-24; state representative, 1824-25

Accomplishments: Continued growth in Indiana's population through the 1830s created a demand for state infrastructure to support the new residents and growing economy.

To meet that demand, Noble helped enact the Mammoth Internal Improvements Act of 1836. Under that law, Indiana borrowed $10 million (approximately $215 million in 2015 dollars), at 6 percent interest, to build a canal network stretching from the Ohio border west to Lafayette and then south to Evansville.

Noble believed canals were better than railroads because they permanently changed the state's landscape and were more in character with the languid pace of Hoosier life.

However, state lawmakers rejected Noble's plan to increase taxes to cover the debt, putting Indiana on a path toward bankruptcy after the nation's economy crashed in the Panic of 1837.

Noble's canals only ever were partially built and soon were made redundant by railroads.

Noble also oversaw construction of the first state capitol building in Indianapolis, an odd combination of a Parthenon-style temple with a rotunda at its center.

His attempts to establish dedicated state funding for local schools faltered due to Indiana's declining financial condition.

Accomplishments: The unsustainable costs of Gov. Noble's state infrastructure projects dominated his lieutenant governor's three-year term as Indiana's chief executive.

Wallace initially attempted to prioritize canal work by ensuring the most potentially profitable sections were built first. But the failure to connect the canals to Lake Erie doomed the entire system by 1840.

Indiana was stretched far beyond its financial means trying to repay the $10 million it borrowed for the improvements. For example, in 1838 Indiana already owed $193,000 in interest, in a year when state tax collections totaled just $45,000.

To preserve its chances of holding the governor's office as Hoosiers became aware of the state's dire financial condition, the Whig Party refused in 1840 to nominate Wallace for a second term.

Instead, he ran for Congress, where Wallace supported federal funding for Samuel Morse's ultimately successful research into telegraph communications.

Wallace also is remembered for using his power as governor to order 800 Potawatomi Indians out of the state under armed guard on a forced march to Kansas known as the Trail of Death, which killed 42 of them.

Governorships seemed to run in Wallace's family. His brother, William Wallace, served as territorial governor in Washington and Idaho, and his son, Lew Wallace, author of the novel "Ben Hur," was governor of New Mexico Territory from 1878-81.

Accomplishments: The Whig Party decision to replace Gov. Wallace on the 1840 ballot with Samuel Bigger, a judge who had no direct hand in the state financial calamity caused by the 1836 Mammoth Internal Improvements Act, paved the way to victory.

Bigger, and Whig candidates across Indiana, likely also got an electoral boost that year thanks to enthusiasm associated with the election of Hoosier President William Henry Harrison.

As governor, Bigger was unable to get the state's canal debt under control as interest continued accumulating at a rate of $500,000 a year.

Indiana finally defaulted on its debt payments in July 1841, though a final settlement with the state's creditors would not be reached until 1847.

Bigger attempted to improve the state's finances by cracking down on unassessed properties and raising assessments in regions where properties were deliberately undervalued. That proved extremely unpopular with Hoosiers, and the law providing for county property tax equalization boards was repealed after just one year.

Nevertheless, Bigger nearly won re-election in 1843 save for his disparaging remark about the intelligence of Methodists, one of the state's most popular religions, which doomed his campaign.

Other offices held: Monroe County prosecutor, 1826-29; state senator, 1830-36; commissioner of the U.S. General Land Office, 1836-41; U.S. senator, 1849-52

Accomplishments: After three consecutive Whig governors bankrupted Indiana by borrowing to pay for unrealistic infrastructure improvements, Hoosiers elected their first Democratic governor to right the ship of state.

To begin, Whitcomb sharply reduced the benefits and salaries of state officials, incurring the ire of the General Assembly. He then worked throughout 1845 and into 1846 to settle the state's liabilities with bondholders, who took ownership of the Wabash and Erie Canal in exchange for eliminating half of Indiana's debt.

The state still was broke in 1846 when the United States declared war on Mexico and President James K. Polk requested Indiana provide three regiments of volunteers. So Whitcomb personally borrowed $10,000 from the Indiana State Bank and arranged credit at other banks to outfit the Hoosier troops who had been training using cornstalks as guns.

During his tenure, Whitcomb approved laws creating schools for deaf and blind Hoosiers, along with an asylum for the mentally insane. He also called for a regular system of financing public education and the creation of a state superintendent of public instruction to oversee it, two provisions that would be included in the 1851 Indiana Constitution.

Whitcomb resigned with one year remaining in his second term after the Legislature elected him to the U.S. Senate.

In 1868, his daughter, Martha Whitcomb, married Claude Matthews, who was elected Indiana's 23rd governor in 1892.

Accomplishments: The resignation of Gov. Whitcomb to take a seat in the U.S. Senate elevated his lieutenant governor to the top job for the one year remaining in Whitcomb's term.

As governor, Dunning effectively handled two incredibly significant matters in that short time: finalizing the settlement of Indiana's canal debt; and deciding how delegates to the 1850-51 constitutional convention would be selected.

He also led Indiana in opposing the expansion of slavery in the western territories and stressed the urgency of state support for public education, as 1 in 5 Hoosiers were found to be illiterate in 1850.

After leaving office, Dunning participated in the constitutional convention and won approval for provisions banning "special legislation" that applies to only one locality and requiring the state pay for a system of free public schools.

Dunning was elected as an independent to the state senate in 1861 and strongly supported the Union cause at the Legislature during the U.S. Civil War.

He was the only person ever to serve as governor, lieutenant governor and in both the Senate and the House under Indiana's original constitution.

Other offices held: State representative 1833-34, 1836-37; state senator 1839-42; U.S. rep. 1843-45; U.S. minister to Prussia, 1857-61, 1865-67; U.S. senator 1862-63

Accomplishments: In 1849, Hoosiers approved the call for a state constitutional convention and elected Wright, who would spend his two terms in office refashioning Indiana to conform with the governing charter adopted in 1851.

The new Constitution required Indiana establish free public schools, the management of which Wright delegated to townships, overseen by a state school board, and funded by more accurate property tax assessments. The tax increases were required because of a new prohibition on state borrowing following the canal debacles of the 1830s and 40s.

Separately, Wright took advantage of another constitutional provision barring the entry of new black residents into the state (since repealed) to promote the resettlement of former slaves in Africa.

Wright touted Hoosier self-sufficiency and encouraged Indiana residents to only purchase goods made in the state. In addition, he distrusted banks and repeatedly vetoed banking regulations approved by the General Assembly (his vetoes were overridden).

During his tenure as governor, Wright regularly conflicted with U.S. Sen. Jesse Bright, the leader of the Indiana Democratic Party. Bright was sympathetic to southern slave owners and supported popular sovereignty to determine whether slavery should be permitted in western territories.

Wright was a Union man in the years leading up to the Civil War. In 1850, he even commissioned a stone for the Washington Monument reading "Indiana knows no North, no South, nothing but the Union."

As the Democratic Party fell apart over slavery in the late 1850s, Wright tended to favor the Know-Nothing, and later Republican, positions. However, the new constitution limited governors to one, four-year term and Wright had to leave office. (His first three years as governor were under the 1816 Constitution which permitted multiple three-year terms).

Wright later represented the United States as minister to Prussia (now Germany), but would return home and replace Bright in the U.S. Senate after Bright was expelled for helping to sell arms to the Confederacy.

Accomplishments: As the United States moved toward Civil War in the 1850s, Indiana's fifth consecutive Democratic governor was challenged by an intra-party civil war over slavery.

Willard, like most southern Hoosiers, supported popular sovereignty to determine whether slavery would be permitted in Nebraska and Kansas, where battles over slavery among new settlers in "Bleeding Kansas" already had turned violent.

After winning election, the new governor demonstrated his southern sympathies by traveling to Jackson, Miss. and proclaiming his support for slavery in the South, and promising to return any slaves that escaped to freedom in Indiana back into bondage.

Northern Indiana Democrats did not share Willard's positions on slavery and began coalescing into a fusion People's Party, alongside former Whigs, Know-Nothings, abolitionists and independents. In 1858, they would rename themselves the Indiana Republican Party.

Willard continually battled with People's Party members in the General Assembly, so much so that the Legislature was unable to elect a U.S. Senator for two years, leaving Indiana with only one.

However, in 1859 Williard succeeded in winning approval for his plan to construct the Indiana State Prison in Michigan City.

Also that year, his brother-in-law, John Cook, was arrested with John Brown and the anti-slavery raiders at Harper's Ferry, Va. Despite Willard's support for slavery, he hired an attorney and sought a pardon for his wife's abolitionist brother. He was unsuccessful and Cook was hanged.

Willard, who had significant respiratory problems, would die in office one year later shortly after suffering a lung hemorrhage during a speech to Democrats in Columbus.

Accomplishments: Dubbed the "accidental governor" by Indiana University professor James St. Clair, Hammond was the first Indiana lieutenant governor to succeed a dead chief executive.

Reportedly, Hammond wasn't even supposed to be Gov. Willard's No. 2. The Democrats' preferred candidate in 1856, John C. Walker of LaPorte County, withdrew after it was discovered he was too young to hold office.

Democrats then turned to Hammond, a former Whig who shared Willard's pro-slavery views, because he offered voters the appearance of Hoosier unity even as the state and nation marched toward civil war.

Hammond did little during his three months in office. In his only address to the General Assembly, he urged legislators to support the Union above all and recommended they send delegates to an ultimately unsuccessful last-ditch conference of border states hoping to avert war.

Hammond did not run for governor in his own right because Hoosier Democrats already had nominated Thomas Hendricks in 1860, prior to Willard's death and Hammond's promotion.

Health issues prompted Hammond to move to Denver, Colo., where he died in 1874.

He is not the namesake of the city of Hammond. Lake County's most populous municipality was named for the George H. Hammond meat-packing plant that began the city's industrialization in 1869.

Other offices held: State representative, 1838-39; U.S. Rep, 1840-43; president of first Republican National Convention, 1856; U.S. senator-designate (seat denied), 1857; U.S. senator, 1861-67

Accomplishments: In 1860, on the eve of the Civil War, the new Republican Party was eager to wrest control of the Indiana governor's office from the Democrats who had held it for nearly two decades.

Oliver Morton, the party's losing 1856 candidate, wanted to run a second time, but party leaders decided Lane offered the best shot at uniting all the factions that made up the new GOP.

Lane and Morton, however, struck a deal where Morton would run as Lane's lieutenant governor, and Lane would put himself up as a candidate for U.S. Senate if Republicans won control of the General Assembly. That's exactly what happened, and two days after being sworn in as governor Lane resigned to represent Indiana in Washington, D.C — making him the shortest-tenured governor in state history.

Prior to leaving, Lane urged the Legislature to stand with the Union, and warned that secession will lead "directly to the utter ruin of all our institutions."

In the Senate, Lane worked to advance the agenda of President Abraham Lincoln, a fellow Kentuckian turned Hoosier, and thwart the Confederacy.

Accomplishments: The state's most powerful and controversial governor, Morton guided Indiana through the Civil War and beyond.

He was a close ally of President Abraham Lincoln, a fellow Republican, and promptly pledged 10,000 Hoosiers to meet Lincoln's call for 75,000 volunteers after war broke out in 1861. Morton also established a state arsenal, without legislative approval, to equip Indiana's ill-provisioned troops.

He cultivated a reputation as "the soldier's friend" by traveling to battlefield hospitals, establishing a state relief program and through the Indiana Sanitary Commission distributing food, clothes, Bibles, writing paper and tobacco to Hoosier troops.

At the same time, Morton sought to undermine his Democratic political opponents by explicitly accusing them of disloyalty, and even suggesting they would side with the Confederates if Indiana were invaded.

Union losses early in the war and Lincoln's decision to change the justification for the war — from the popular preserving the Union to the decidedly unpopular call to end slavery — produced Democratic legislative majorities in 1863.

Not wanting to lose his near-dictatorial powers in military and state personnel matters, Morton proceeded to shun the General Assembly. He refused to give his State of the State address in person and directed legislative Republicans to boycott meetings.

GOP lawmakers even left Indianapolis at Morton's direction and relocated to the Kentucky border for two years, prepared to flee the state, if necessary, to ensure the Legislature would not have a quorum to do business.

As a result, Indiana did not enact a state budget, leaving Morton to borrow money wherever he could find it to keep Indiana operating. Because he did not trust the Democratic state treasurer, Morton essentially ran the state himself out of a safe in his office.

Morton's Democratic fear-mongering largely fell apart as a serious matter in July 1863 when southern Hoosiers fought off Confederate invaders in Morgan's Raid. Nevertheless, Morton used the threat of Democratic sedition, and the timely return home of some 9,000 soldiers, to win election as governor in his own right in 1864.

Attempts to use the one-term limit of the 1851 Constitution to prevent Morton from running again came to naught as Morton persuaded voters that he only was elected lieutenant governor in 1860, despite having served just two days in that office before advancing to the top job.

After the Civil War, Morton continued to pound Democrats, calling the party in 1866: "A common sewer and loathsome receptacle into which is emptied every element of treason North and South."

He resigned as governor in 1867 after the General Assembly, now back in Republican hands, elected him to the U.S. Senate.

In Washington, Morton quickly changed his opposition to black voting rights and joined with the Radical Republicans to win passage of the 15th Amendment. Morton even returned to Indianapolis to engineer the amendment's approval by the Indiana Legislature after Hoosier Democratic lawmakers resigned en masse to prevent a quorum.

In 1876, Morton ran for president and came in second place on the first nominating ballot at the Republican Party convention that ultimately chose Rutherford B. Hayes as its candidate.

Following the disputed contest between Hayes and Democrat Samuel Tilden, who got more popular votes than Hayes, Morton served on the commission that cut a deal to make Hayes president in exchange for ending the Reconstruction policies Morton supported to remake the former Confederacy.

Morton today is remembered with a large statute outside the east entrance to the Statehouse that proclaims him "The Great War Governor."

Morton High School in Hammond, whose sports teams are the "Governors," also is named in his honor.

Accomplishments: One of the earliest members of the Indiana Republican Party, Baker was the party's first nominee for lieutenant governor in 1856, alongside gubernatorial candidate Oliver Morton.

They did not win, but over the next decade Morton (who became governor in 1861) and Baker maintained a political partnership that served each other, and Indiana, quite well.

During the Civil War, Baker was colonel of the First Indiana Cavalry and also served as Morton's eyes and ears among the Hoosier troops. He was considered a master of organizing, which helped ensure provisions for soldiers sent from Indiana got to their intended recipients.

Morton chose Baker as his running mate in his victorious 1864 campaign. When Morton suffered a stroke shortly thereafter and left Indiana to seek treatment in Paris, Baker became acting governor for five months.

He changed Morton's policy of take-no-prisoners political confrontation into one approaching bipartisan cooperation. Baker officially ascended to the top job after Morton was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1867.

As governor, Baker established many of the state institutions that would serve Hoosiers for decades to come, including Indiana State University, Purdue University, Indiana Soldiers' and Sailors' Children's Home, Indiana Boys' School and a women's prison.

He won election in his own right in 1868, defeating Democrat Thomas Hendricks by just 961 votes — the closest gubernatorial election in Indiana history.

When legislative Democrats resigned en masse in 1869 to prevent ratification of the 15th Amendment, providing the right to vote to black men, Baker ordered immediate new elections. After the Democrats who just quit won re-election and resigned again to prevent a quorum to do business, Baker passed the amendment through an all-Republican Legislature.

That questionable move was overlooked by congressional Republicans eager for ratification.

Baker also championed women's suffrage four decades before they were permitted to vote.

He established the Governor's Portrait Collection and allocated state revenue to create paintings of his 14 predecessors as Indiana's chief executive.

In 1873, after leaving office, Baker joined the Indianapolis law firm run by Hendricks, his successor as governor.

Other offices held: State representative, 1848-49; delegate to Indiana constitutional convention, 1850-51; U.S. Rep., 1851-55; commissioner of U.S. General Land Office, 1855-59; U.S. Senator, 1863-69; U.S. vice president, 1885

Accomplishments: The nephew of Indiana's third governor, Hendricks was elected the state's chief executive on his third try after losing in the 1860 and 1868 contests.

He was the first Democrat elected in a northern state after the Civil War, as Hoosiers remained outraged at Gov. Baker's and former Gov. Morton's maneuvering to pass the 15th Amendment allowing black men to vote.

Unlike prior Democratic governors, Hendricks did not support slavery, but neither did he believe in racial equality. He infamously declared, "This is a white man's government, made by the white man, for the white man."

His term in office mainly was spent coping with the effects of the Panic of 1873, which produced high unemployment, labor unrest and declining farm prices. Hendricks even twice called out the state militia to break up labor protests in Clay County and Logansport.

The prohibition of alcohol became a major issue during his administration, and Hendricks approved legislation permitting each locality to decide the issue, even though he favored state regulation. When the local option quickly became unworkable, Hendricks' preferred plan was adopted by the Legislature.

He also led the charge for a new Statehouse to replace the dilapidated 1835 structure that was wholly inadequate for a modern, growing state.

Hendricks was the Democratic nominee for U.S. vice president in the disputed election of 1876, which Morton helped throw to Republican Rutherford B. Hayes.

In 1884, Hendricks again was tapped by Democrats for vice president and this time elected with running mate Grover Cleveland.

However, Hendricks died unexpectedly during a trip home to Indianapolis just eight months after taking office.

A large monument to Hendricks stands on the southeast corner of the Statehouse grounds facing his hometown of Shelbyville.

Accomplishments: Williams was the first farmer elected governor of Indiana, and it showed both in his policies and his pants.

Faced with a struggling state economy due to the Panic of 1873, Williams renewed his emphasis on the thrift and budget-cutting that started when he was elected to the Legislature, and his first vote was against spending state funds to provide lawmakers copies of the Indianapolis newspapers.

That fiscal focus came through most significantly in 1877, when Williams approved the $2 million appropriation to build the current Statehouse, and put the burden of cost overruns on its architect. Ten years later, when the Statehouse was completed, some $20,000 of that original appropriation was returned to the treasury.

However, Williams is best known for his habit of wearing silk-lined denim suits, made from the wool of his own sheep. That practice that earned him the nickname "Blue Jeans" Williams.

He has been described by historians as Indiana's last pioneer governor, but also criticized for being out-of-touch with the industrialization and labor unrest of post-Civil War America.

Williams died in office with less than two months remaining in his term.

Accomplishments: The first Indiana governor to serve nonconsecutive terms, Gray finished the six weeks remaining in Gov. James Williams' tenure as the lamest of lame ducks.

That's because Gray was renominated for lieutenant governor in 1880, as running mate to former U.S. Rep. Franklin Landers, but the Democrats already had lost the election when Gray began his short stint as chief executive.

Four years later, the Democrats nominated Gray at the top of their ticket and he was elected governor in his own right.

During his career in politics, Gray never was one to shy away from bending the rules to enact his policy goals or in trying to advance to higher office, both of which would play a role in the defining moment of his governorship, known as the "Black Day of the General Assembly."

The origins of that Feb. 24, 1887, fiasco stretch back to 1869 when Gray, then the Republican Senate president, forced through ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment, giving black men the right to vote, over the objections and procedural impediments of Hoosier Democrats.

Despite becoming a Democrat in 1873, after being disgusted by the scandal-ridden administration of Republican President Ulysses S. Grant, Gray never was fully trusted by his fellow partisans due to his role in passing the Fifteenth Amendment.

Shortly after taking office the second time, Gray began maneuvering to win election to the U.S. Senate. However, Democrats threw a wrench in his plans when they persuaded Lt. Gov. Mahlon Manson to resign for a low-level federal job, leaving no clear successor if the Legislature elected Gray to the Senate.

Gray then used an attorney general's opinion to justify holding a special election for lieutenant governor in 1886. To Gray's surprise, Republican Robert Robertson was elected, along with a GOP-controlled House, further stymieing Gray's plans to get elected to the U.S. Senate.

The Democratic majority in the Indiana Senate refused to recognize Robertson's election, would not permit him to preside over the chamber and declared the lieutenant governor's office vacant. Robertson's House Republican allies separately declared him the duly elected lieutenant governor, a position confirmed by the Indiana Supreme Court on Feb. 23, 1887.

The next day, when Robertson attempted to take his post at the Senate rostrum, he was manhandled by a doorkeeper and pushed out of the chamber. Fistfights erupted among Democratic senators and some 600 Republicans who had packed the building to ensure Robertson took office. The fighting continued until one lawmaker pulled a gun and shot it into the ceiling, threatening to kill Republicans unless the fighting stopped.

The fighting instead moved to the House, where Democratic members were pulled outside by the Republican mob, beaten and threatened with death. Gray called in police reinforcements from Indianapolis and Marion County and eventually order was restored after some four hours of fighting.

Robertson never was permitted to preside over the Senate, Gray didn't win election to the U.S. Senate, and Indiana's GOP House and Democratic Senate even stopped communicating with each other — preventing much from getting done.

However, the episode did grow support nationwide for the popular election of U.S. senators, a reform that was still three decades away.

During his remaining years as governor, Gray approved an appropriation for the Soldiers and Sailors Monument located on the Indianapolis Circle, promoted election reforms and cracked down on burgeoning Ku Klux Klan activity in southern Indiana by banning three or more people from wearing masks if gathered for unlawful activities.

Gray twice was considered a candidate for U.S. vice president, in 1888 and 1892, but southern Democrats refused to support his nomination when they learned of his actions as a Republican to ratify the Fifteenth Amendment.

As a consolation prize, President Grover Cleveland in 1893 made Gray minister to Mexico, where he died of double pneumonia in 1895.

The president of Mexico, along with a Mexican army division, personally escorted Gray's body by train back to Indianapolis.

Accomplishments: Described by historian Jeffery Duvall as a governor of "great competence and little fanfare," Porter led Indiana during a time of increasing partisan conflict.

In 1881, his fellow Republicans proposed amending the state constitution to give women the right to vote and simultaneously prohibit alcohol consumption in the state.

Hoosier voters, in response, elected Democratic majorities to the General Assembly that promptly killed the odd hybrid amendment. For good measure, they also took away the governor's authority to appoint members to state boards and commissions, dramatically weakening the already limited powers of the governor.

For example, only a simple majority is required for the General Assembly to override a governor's veto, the same number of votes needed to pass legislation in the first place.

Facing a hostile Legislature, Porter scaled back any ambitions he might have had as governor and concentrated on merely managing the state during his four-year term.

He approved spending $5,000 to survey the Grand Kankakee Marsh in Northwest Indiana ahead of its eventually drainage. He also established state agencies for statistics, geology and natural history as well as a state board of health.

When the Ohio and Wabash rivers both flooded in 1883, Porter won legislative approval for a $100,000 relief program.

Prior to his election as governor, Porter was attorney for Lambdin Milligan in a U.S. Supreme Court case, known as Ex parte Milligan, that ruled unconstitutional the use of military tribunals to try citizens for crimes when civilian courts are operating in a time of war.

Milligan, a fierce critic of Indiana's Civil War Gov. Oliver Morton, was arrested in 1864 by then Gen. Alvin Hovey, a future Indiana governor, and convicted by a military tribunal for conspiring to support the Confederacy.

His death sentence was commuted by President Andrew Johnson, and in 1866 Milligan was set free by the U.S. Supreme Court, which concluded military justice is not appropriate when regular courts are open.

Milligan later sued Hovey for $500,000, alleging conspiracy, false imprisonment and libel. He was awarded $5.

Porter is not the namesake of Porter County, which honors U.S. Navy Capt. David Porter, who fought during the Barbary Wars and the War of 1812.

Accomplishments: Winning by just 1,149 more votes than his opponent, Hovey was another Republican governor who regularly clashed with the Democratic-controlled Legislature.

One area the two parties did agree on was election reform, following the hopelessly corrupt balloting in 1888 that helped propel Hoosier Republican Benjamin Harrison into the White House.

Under Hovey, Indiana was among the earliest states to end party printing of election ballots that were cast in public (to make sure bought voters selected the right ballot), and instead began using state-printed ballots marked in secret for its elections. Indiana also began regulating who could enter polling places and limited campaigning at sites where voters cast their ballots.

Hovey and state lawmakers also cracked down on the practice of "white capping," a form of vigilante justice imposed by secret societies in southern Indiana that punished men and women (often with whipping) who failed to live up to the perceived standards required by Christian values and good citizenship.

Otherwise, conflicts between the governor and the Legislature over appointment powers and control of state agencies continued apace, often requiring intervention by the Indiana Supreme Court to settle.

Prior to taking office, Hovey was sponsor of an 1851 state constitutional section barring "negroes, mulattoes and Indians" from voting, and supported another provision prohibiting free blacks from settling in Indiana prior to the Civil War.

During the war, Hovey was appointed military commander of Indiana and targeted conspiracies, widely touted by Gov. Oliver Morton, of alleged Confederate sympathizers in the state, including Huntington attorney Lambdin Milligan, the subject of a famous U.S. Supreme Court case that limited the use of military tribunals to try civilians accused of crime.

Accomplishments: As a popular founder of the Grand Army of the Republic, a Civil War veterans advocacy group with many Hoosier members, Chase was an easy consensus pick for lieutenant governor in 1888, and helped Alvin Hovey win election as governor.

When Hovey died nearly three years into his term, Chase succeeded him and took on the role of a caretaker governor.

Like Hovey, he had difficulties working with the Democratic-controlled General Assembly and was unsuccessful in his advocacy for alcohol prohibition and increased spending on roads.

He even failed to win the full $135,000 appropriation he sought to fund the Indiana Pavilion at the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago, getting just $50,000 for the exhibit.

The Indiana Republican Party tried to deter Chase from running in 1892 for a full term as governor, fearing that his appeal would be limited to churchgoers and temperance supporters. Indeed, Chase often used campaign stops to deliver both political speeches and sermons in the same town on the same day.

Despite the presence of Republican Hoosier President Benjamin Harrison at the top of the 1892 ballot, Chase was defeated (as was Harrison).

Chase returned to his ministry after leaving office and died while preaching in Maine.

Other offices held: State representative, 1877-78; secretary of state, 1891-93

Accomplishments: Economic and political forces largely outside his control doomed Matthews to a four-year term filled with unrest.

Shortly after taking office, the Panic of 1893 crashed the U.S. economy causing high unemployment, railroad bankruptcies, business failures, farm price declines and bank closures. It also prompted labor conflicts.

Matthews deployed the state militia to break up western Indiana coal strikes and to reopen rail lines in Hammond seized by strikers protesting conditions at the nearby Pullman Palace Car Co. Since the Legislature was not in session at the time, Matthews personally borrowed $41,000 to pay the troops. He later was reimbursed by the state.

His relationship with the Legislature soured after the 1894 election when voters punished Democrats for the state of the economy and elected the first Republican-controlled General Assembly in two decades.

GOP lawmakers immediately rescinded the Democratic-drawn 1893 redistricting map and enacted one that favored Republicans. (It was later struck down by the Supreme Court.) They also sought to take away the gubernatorial appointment powers that Democratic lawmakers restored when Matthews took office.

Matthews vetoed the bill stripping him of his appointment powers minutes before the Legislature adjourned in 1895, but Republicans blocked the governor's messenger from delivering it to the House Speaker. That prompted fistfights between Republican and Democratic lawmakers that reportedly lasted a half-hour before order was restored. Matthews did not regain his appointment authority.

During his term, Matthews also successfully cracked down on horse racing and prize fighting in Lake County, notwithstanding the offer of a $500 bribe for the House clerk to "lose" the racetrack bill before the governor could sign it.

Matthews was a Democratic contender for U.S. president in 1896 but eventually lost on the fifth ballot at the Chicago convention to William Jennings Bryan, whose "Cross of Gold" speech put Democrats squarely on the side of less restrictive monetary controls.

Accomplishments: Paired with a Republican Legislature and a growing economy four years after the Panic of 1893, Mount accomplished far more than his immediate predecessors as Indiana's chief executive.

In 1897, he enacted the first compulsory school attendance law for children ages 8-14. He also approved measures from the national progressive agenda regulating big business, worker health and safety, food and drug quality and medical licensing.

Hoosier prisoners first got the chance at parole during Mount's term in office.

Mount was governor during the Spanish-American War, and fought with the U.S. War Department to ensure two all-black Indiana regiments would be led by black officers. The black Hoosier troops never saw battle in the short conflict, but the federal government did eliminate its requirement that white officers always command black soldiers.

In 1899, Mount was at the center of a curious episode in Kentucky politics.

Republican William Taylor appeared to have won election as governor over Democrat William Goebel, though Kentucky Democrats were investigating claims of voter fraud. During their appeal, Goebel was shot as he entered the Kentucky Statehouse and died a few days later.

Taylor was indicted for complicity in Goebel's murder, but fled to Indiana, where Mount, a fellow Republican, refused to extradite Taylor back to Kentucky. Indeed, Taylor remained in Indiana and became an insurance executive.

The burdens of being governor wore on Mount, who wanted to get back to farming, and he proclaimed his last day in office "the happiest day of my life."

It happened to be one of the last days of his life. Mount died two days after his term as governor expired.

Accomplishments: A businessman who believed government should operate on business principles, Durbin largely would find a familiar place in today's Republican Party.

In his inaugural address, Durbin explained that he believed "each taxpayer is like a stockholder in state government" and pledged to run the state as a business, free of any partisan bias.

His policy agenda largely mirrored national progressives by opposing the consolidation of railroads, favoring harsh punishment for voter fraud, and endorsing innovations in government, such as creating Indiana's first juvenile court in 1903.

The increasing popularity of automobiles during his term prompted Durbin to ask the General Assembly regulate the speed and manner in which cars were driven.

Durbin is perhaps best known for his efforts to eliminate lynching and other vigilante justice. Between 1865 and 1903, 41 whites and 20 blacks were lynched in Indiana. An 1899 law, requiring a county sheriff to contact the governor for military assistance if a lynching was threatened, was not followed by either the sheriffs or Gov. Mount, and four black men were lynched in 1900.

Durbin used the law in 1902 to remove the Sullivan County sheriff after he handed a black man over to a lynch mob. However, when he deployed the National Guard to prevent an Evansville lynching in 1903, the soldiers were taunted and shot at by locals. Guardsmen and county deputies eventually fired back, killing 11 members of the mob and ending the threat.

Durbin worried about the popularity of mob rule and expressed concern that American democracy risked falling under the "sway of that dictator who proves himself to be the best leader of mobs."

He returned to his businesses after leaving office, though he kept a toe dipped in Indiana politics, fighting against Gov. Thomas Marshall's proposed new state constitution in 1911.

Durbin was nominated for governor again in 1912 by a bitterly divided Republican Party, but came in third place.

Accomplishments: One of Indiana's most controversial governors, Hanly came into office with a chip on his shoulder toward the Democrats, whose 1890s redistricting plan caused him to lose his U.S. House seat.

He declared Hoosier Democrats "without constructive ability" and seeking power "for unholy and partisan purposes" — sentiments apparently shared by the Hoosiers who elected him governor in a landslide, along with GOP House and Senate supermajorities.

Obsessed with eliminating vice in pursuit of Christian virtue, Hanly crusaded against alcohol, horse racing and gambling. The latter was prompted in part by the discovery that the GOP state auditor, secretary of state and adjutant general used state funds to pay personal gambling debts at an illegal casino in French Lick owned by Thomas Taggart, chairman of the Democratic National Committee.

The fight for alcohol prohibition dominated much of Hanly's term.

He was determined to give each county the option of voting itself dry, and called for a special session of the General Assembly three weeks before the 1908 elections to make that happen. Democrats declared the special session unconstitutional, but GOP lawmakers passed the local-option statute anyway. Its biggest effect was to swing the next two gubernatorial elections to the Democrats.

Hanly separately approved the nation's first eugenics law, providing for the forced sterilization of Hoosiers with mental health issues and others in state custody. That law was declared unconstitutional by the Indiana Supreme Court in 1921.

After leaving office, Hanly joined numerous groups, including the Anti-Saloon League and the Flying Squadron of America, working to enact nationwide alcohol prohibition.

Hanly ran, unsuccessfully, as the Prohibition Party candidate for U.S. president in 1916.

Accomplishments: Hard work, political savvy and a lot of luck propelled Marshall into the governor's office, despite never having previously held elective office.

The northeast Indiana lawyer was typical for his time, joining numerous local and statewide community groups where he built a reputation as quick-witted, smart and engaging (despite occasionally drinking too much in a state filled with prohibitionists).

Hoosier Democrats, led by Thomas Taggart, turned to Marshall, long a loyal party man, as a compromise candidate after the 1908 convention deadlocked on selecting a nominee for governor. Marshall inherited a state convulsing under a rapid economic change from agricultural to industrial production, seen perhaps most vividly in the newly created company town of Gary, home to the vast U.S. Steel mills.

At the time, Indiana lagged most other states in public health, worker safety and infrastructure. Social and charitable groups could not keep up with the needs of thousands of newcomers from the South and across the ocean. To cope, Marshall helped enact a child labor ban, weekly wage law, regulations on railroads and telephones and an employer liability statute. He also created the State Board of Accounts to audit the revenue and spending of state agencies and local governments.

Historians now say that's about as progressive as Hoosiers were prepared to go in the early 20th century. Nevertheless, Marshall tried to take it a step further by proposing a new state constitution that he and his next-door neighbor wrote together. It allowed for voter initiative, referendum and recall, though simultaneously restricted voter rights to long-term Indiana residents and required voters pay a poll tax. Marshall's constitution also would have increased the size of the five-member Supreme Court and 100-member House of Representatives.

He presented his constitution to the Democratic-controlled Legislature, which approved it and sent it to voters for ratification. Republicans cried foul, claiming a constitutional convention is the only way to replace the state's governing charter, a position upheld by the Indiana Supreme Court before Hoosiers could vote on whether to adopt the Marshall constitution.

Debate over the ideas in his constitution raised Marshall's national profile, and he considered running for U.S. president in 1912. When New Jersey Gov. Woodrow Wilson got the Democratic nomination, Taggart helped engineer Marshall's position as Wilson's running mate.

Marshall was well regarded as vice president before, during and after World War I, though he was not particularly close to Wilson. After the president suffered a debilitating stroke in 1919, Wilson aides conspired to cover-up his illness to prevent Marshall from trying to become president.

Marshall also was known in Washington for his sense of humor, including numerous quips about his home state. Among them, "Indiana is the mother of vice presidents; home of more second-class men than any other state."

Upon his death in 1925, U.S. Secretary of State Frank Kellogg said of Marshall, he "was a man of sterling ability and the highest character and won the respect of everyone whom he knew."

Accomplishments: A Republican reformer, in the mold of future Gov. Mitch Daniels, Goodrich ultimately was unable to convince a Republican-controlled Legislature to give up control of patronage jobs and reform Indiana's tax code.

Declaring his goal as governor was to improve the "efficiency and economy" of state government, Goodrich began by trying to change how Indiana assessed property taxes. He believed it was unfair that farmers shouldered most of the property tax burden when intangible personal and business property, like vehicles, went untaxed. The General Assembly, however, could not be persuaded to enact a property excise tax on Hoosiers who didn't own land.

Goodrich's attempt to go over lawmakers' heads by calling for a constitutional convention on taxes (just a few years after Hoosier voters rejected that idea) was stuck down in the courts. Similarly, his efforts to eliminate and consolidate government jobs went nowhere, and he faced virulent criticism for that effort from Democratic-leaning newspaper publishers who anticipated a future Democratic governor would want to fill those posts with loyal party supporters.

Goodrich was governor during most of the American involvement in World War I. In that capacity, he strove to ensure the huge number of deployed Hoosiers were taken care of overseas and after they returned home. He also fought against anti-German bigotry during the war, including the changing of German street names, discrimination against Hoosiers of German ancestry and occasional violence. Goodrich was unsuccessful in stopping enactment of a statute prohibiting the teaching of the German language in Indiana schools.

He may have been more successful as governor had he not suffered two significant health crises in office. In 1917, Goodrich was laid-up for six months after contracting typhoid on a state prison visit. One year later, his vehicle was hit by a streetcar and Goodrich nearly killed. He suffered a broken hip, skull fracture, cracked ribs and a broken collarbone. Goodrich recovered, but was forced to walk with a cane the rest of his life.

In 1919, Indiana ratified proposed amendments to the U.S. Constitution banning alcohol consumption and providing women the right to vote. Goodrich signed both of those ratification decrees.

During his term, he also established the Indiana State Highway Commission that designated the initial routes of state highways and charged the renamed Indiana Historical Bureau with compiling a county-by-county history of Hoosier involvement in WWI.

After leaving office, Goodrich was tapped by Republican presidents to investigate the new Soviet Union, and he made four trips to Moscow for meetings with Vladimir Lenin, Josef Stalin, Leon Trotsky and other Soviet leaders. He recommended the United States recognize the USSR, but that wouldn't happen until 1933.

Goodrich's personal business interests dominated his post-gubernatorial life and he amassed a small fortune as an early investor in telephone, seed company, grain elevator, utility, newspaper and bank stocks.

Accomplishments: The first governor who could be said to have come from Northwest Indiana also was the first to resign minutes before being sentenced to 10 years in federal prison.

McCray's term began on a somewhat happier note as the United States was at peace, but the economy was struggling to reorient itself following demobilization after World War I. A farm price depression hit hard the personal interests of McCray, a nationally-known cattle dealer, but Indiana remained in relatively good shape.

In fact, McCray advocated the Legislature do less, following two decades of progressive policymaking, and vowed to cut spending on all but necessary items, including 87 new state and school buildings. He also made an exception for construction of the Lincoln Highway, authorizing the state's first gasoline tax to pay for road building.

McCray's term coincided with the rise of the Ku Klux Klan in Indiana. The governor was not a member of the white supremacist, anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic secret society, but at least half the General Assembly was comprised of Klansmen, as were several other officials, including GOP Secretary of State Ed Jackson.

McCray opposed Jackson's decision to provide the Klan a state charter and unsuccessfully sought help in denying the charter from the attorney general (another Klansman). His opposition to the Klan drew the organization's enmity, especially after the millionaire governor rejected Jackson's offer of a $10,000 bribe from Klan leader D.C. Stephenson if McCray would fill more state offices with Klan members.

The Klan finally decided to bring down McCray after he vetoed a plan for a Klan Day at the Indiana State Fair, complete with nighttime cross-burning.

However, McCray already had sewn the seeds of his destruction. Forced to borrow money to keep his Newton County cattle auction business intact, the governor obtained a $155,000 loan from the State Agricultural Board that he deposited in his personal bank account. He also wrote fraudulent promissory notes to numerous banks and threatened to pull state deposits from those institutions if they revealed his fraud.

McCray was indicted in Marion County for embezzlement of state funds, even though his friends had repaid the loan. His trial ended in a hung jury.

But federal prosecutors then convicted McCray of using the mail to send his fraudulent promissory notes, and he was sentenced to 10 years in prison, though he only served three.

Accomplishments: The resignation of Gov. McCray with nearly nine months remaining in his term, and the jostling to succeed him already underway, made Branch a caretaker chief executive.

He saw his primary task as restoring confidence in the governor's office with his predecessor headed to federal prison. Branch did so by ordering a top-to-bottom review of the operations of the executive branch.

He also committed to carrying on McCray's policy agenda of improving schools and roads, providing health care to children and expanding the state prison system.

Separately, Branch requested increased funding to improve railroad crossings and reduce the high number of train-car crashes, as well as establish a permanent home for the Indiana School for the Blind.

Branch, a Spanish-American War veteran, resumed his legal practice after his short term as governor ended. He later was owner of several businesses and farms in Morgan County.

Accomplishments: The most notorious Indiana governor due to his affiliation with the Ku Klux Klan, Jackson nearly was forced from office and remains something of a pariah to this day.

Unlike Republican Gov. Warren McCray, who resisted the Klan's growing influence in the state GOP, Jackson embraced the racist organization and allied himself with Klan leader D.C. Stephenson. However, fearing that might cost him votes in the 1924 election, Jackson disguised his bigotry by campaigning on a platform of "civil and religious liberty for Jews, Catholics and blacks."

The state's massive Klan membership helped propel Jackson to an overwhelming victory, and with a Republican-controlled General Assembly (at least half of whom were fellow Klansmen) Jackson looked to be in a position to enact any policy he wished. But conflicts between Stephenson and the national Klan organization caused rifts among Hoosier Republicans, diminishing Jackson's effectiveness.

The key issue during his term actually was Prohibition. The United States officially went "dry" in 1920, but it was up to each state to decide how strictly the ban on alcohol was enforced. Prompted by the Indiana Anti-Saloon League, Jackson in 1925 signed the "Bone Dry Law," increasing penalties for anyone caught consuming alcohol and barring even the medicinal sale of whiskey in the state.

When Jackson's wife, Lydia, was ill, the governor asked the attorney general to procure some medicinal whiskey for her, as the attorney general previously had for his own children. Revelation of the alcohol consumption prompted a minor scandal that diminished Jackson's standing as governor.

He soon was engulfed in a major scandal after Stephenson was convicted of raping and murdering a Statehouse employee, Madge Oberholtzer, who killed herself with poison purchased in Hammond after Stephenson assaulted her on a train ride to Chicago.

The Klan leader demanded his friend, the governor, pardon his crime and prevent him from serving a life term in prison. Jackson refused, and a furious Stephenson leaked to the press the details of Klan control of Indiana government, including the bribe Jackson offered Gov. McCray on the Klan's behalf while Jackson served as secretary of state.

Despite widespread calls for Jackson to resign, he remained in office and fought the corruption charges brought against him.

In the end, Jackson prevailed when it was determined the statute of limitations on his crimes had expired.

After his term as governor ended, Jackson tried to run his own law office in Indianapolis but struggled to find clients. He eventually moved to Orange County, where he raised cattle and operated an apple orchard.

Other offices held: U.S. High Commissioner to the Philippines, 1937-39, 1945-46; U.S. Federal Security Agency director, 1940-42; U.S. War Manpower Commission, 1942-44; U.S. Ambassador to the Philippines, 1946-47

Accomplishments: Just as the nation elected Democrat Franklin Roosevelt president in 1932, so too did Hoosiers decide to combat the ongoing Great Depression by ending nearly two decades of Republican control of the governor's office.

McNutt, a popular Indiana University law school professor and national commander of the American Legion, helped in this regard, campaigning ceaselessly for Democrats (and eventually himself) for two full years prior to the election. He focused the race on tax reform and economy in government, and insisted the only way to end the Depression was to get rid of every Republican officeholder.

He nearly succeeded, with Democrats in 1932 winning the governor's office, all 12 of Indiana's congressional seats, a U.S. Senate seat and margins of 43-7 in the state Senate and 91-9 in the House.

Taking an expansive view of the role of governor, McNutt reorganized the executive branch, consolidating 168 state agencies and commissions into eight departments; claimed the power to appoint any non-elected state employee; and centralized control in the governor's office. He enacted the state's first income tax and imposed a gross receipts tax on businesses, which helped turn a $3.4 million state deficit into a $17 million surplus.

McNutt reduced the power of utility companies by establishing an office of the consumer advocate (initially future U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sherman Minton) to fight for lower rates. He also effectively implemented national New Deal relief programs in Indiana, providing work to jobless Hoosiers and hope for those struggling for years during the Depression.

McNutt's patronage powers did raise eyebrows as state employees were essentially required to belong to the governor's "Two Percent Club," and kick back 2 percent of their wages to the Indiana Democratic Party. Following the 1933 repeal of Prohibition, McNutt also saw to it that loyal Democrats got the limited number of beer distributor licenses.

In 1935, McNutt's willingness to call out the National Guard to quell labor strikes earned him the nickname "Hoosier Hitler."

McNutt considered challenging Roosevelt for president in 1936. He was dissuaded after Roosevelt appointed him High Commissioner for the Philippines, where he helped Jewish refugees find homes after they were rejected for entry to the United States.

In 1940, McNutt was sure it was his time to be president, but Roosevelt's successful bid for a third term derailed his ambitions once again. During World War II, McNutt served in a variety of federal posts.

President Harry Truman sent McNutt back as the first U.S. ambassador to the Philippines in 1946 after the island nation regained its sovereignty following the war.

McNutt later worked as lawyer in New York City and Washington, D.C. He is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

Accomplishments: The only governor elected to two nonconsecutive terms, Schricker was a Democratic standout in an era when Indiana was again trending Republican, helped by the goodwill he engendered among voters having constantly traveling the state as lieutenant governor.

The Republican-controlled Legislature that confronted Schicker as governor wasn't as friendly. Still stung by Gov. McNutt's executive reorganization, the General Assembly not only passed legislation in 1941 repealing that law, but also a second measure diminishing the power of the governor to basically an executive caretaker.

For example, the Democratic governor had to get permission from two GOP state officers to appoint any person to lead a state agency. It took an Indiana Supreme Court ruling to confirm that the governor is the state's "chief executive," he alone has appointment authority, and the Legislature cannot violate the constitution's separation of powers to diminish the governor's position.

The Dec. 7, 1941, start of U.S. involvement in World War II put domestic political fights on the back burner for the three years remaining in Schricker's term. He and the GOP Legislature agreed to work together to keep the state's finances in check.

When Schricker's term ended in 1945, Indiana had a $57 million surplus.

Four years later, with no viable Democratic gubernatorial candidate, Schricker "reluctantly consented" to run again and overwhelmingly was elected, even as Hoosiers voted for Republican Thomas Dewey for president.

In his second term, relations with the Republican Legislature remained strained. Lawmakers overrode Schricker's veto of a law requiring a list Hoosier recipients of federal welfare payments be made public, despite a federal law prohibiting publication of the list. When the federal government threatened to withhold $18 million in welfare payments, Schricker finally persuaded the General Assembly to postpone the effective date of the law for two years. In that time, the federal law was changed by U.S. Sen. William Jenner, R-Ind., to prevent Indiana from being punished.

Schricker left office a second time in 1953 with a budget surplus of $125 million. Though the state's parsimony in spending soon would become readily apparent in its crumbling schools, roads and mental health system.

Accomplishments: A lifelong Republican from northeast Indiana, Gates was one of the few Hoosier GOPers to avoid joining the Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s and helped restore the party after the downfall of its Klan leadership.

Gates, a municipal attorney, worked his way up through local Republican Party organizations and in 1941 became chairman of the state party. Having previously served as Indiana commander of the American Legion, Gates was well-versed in organizing and united Hoosier Republicans in opposition to Democratic President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal.

He consistently said, "A local problem can best be solved by local government," which proved to be a winning message in 1944 as World War II neared its end and Hoosiers wanted to retake control of their lives.

Backed by a Republican-controlled Legislature, Gates did not face the same power struggles that dominated Gov. Schricker's early first term. He promised not to be a dictator in the mold of Gov. McNutt, but also insisted that each branch of government stay in its lane. To that end, Gates focused on industrial growth, highway construction and mental health issues as governor, often working across party lines to reach a compromise solution that everyone could claim credit for.

However, the demands of the post-war economy also required growth in government, and Gates oversaw the creation of the departments of revenue, veterans affairs and commerce, and he approved tax hikes on beer, liquor and cigarettes.

Gates' opposition to federal spending ended up killing one of his top agenda items: highway construction. The Republican Legislature refused to put up matching state funds to qualify for federal construction grants, and Indiana was left with poor state roads and no support for local road needs. However, Schricker did increase the state's budget reserve by $10 million at the end of his term.

Upon leaving the governor's office, Gates never again was a political candidate and instead became something of a party elder from whom GOP candidates sought his blessing. Among the final men to receive it was former Indianapolis Mayor Dick Lugar prior to his 1976 run for U.S. Senate, a post Lugar would hold for the next 36 years.

Accomplishments: A moderate Eisenhower Republican in an era when Hoosier GOPers tended to embrace the virulent anti-communist rhetoric of U.S. Sen. Joseph McCarthy, R-Wis., Craig ended up fighting his fellow partisans far more than any Democrat.

Craig was the first governor never to hold political office before or after his term as chief executive. However, he was elected national commander of the American Legion, a powerful veterans organization headquartered in Indianapolis, that also was a political springboard for Govs. McNutt and Gates.

During the early Cold War era, Craig traveled the nation for the American Legion preaching about the dangers of communism. In 1951, two years before the next election, Craig began organizing a stealth gubernatorial campaign that relied on winning over previous nominating convention delegates since the same people almost always were elected to attend the convention.

His surprise candidacy dismayed Indiana's McCarthy-like U.S. Sens. Homer Capehart and William Jenner, who believed they controlled the state's Republican Party. It took three convention ballots, but Craig won the GOP nomination and was elected governor, despite ongoing friction with the state party.

Craig outlined an ambitious agenda as governor, similar to McNutt (his law school professor), proposing 26 major reforms, most of which cost money Hoosier lawmakers were loath to spend. Craig did manage to establish the Department of Correction, set uniform traffic laws, expand the police academy, create a new state mental health agency and build the Indiana Toll Road.

However, his plans for a toll road network across the state, a new state office building, a Lake Michigan port, more highway construction funds and numerous other ideas, including abolishing the death penalty, were stymied by GOP legislators who relished working against him instead of with the governor.

For example, lawmakers doled out $7.6 million in state bonuses to Hoosier Korean War veterans over Craig's objections, and then blamed him when the state's surplus disappeared.

Craig's administration was tainted by an end-of-term scandal that found the head of the state highway department and two Craig aides colluding to demand bribes in exchange for highway contracts. Craig was not implicated, but he did have to testify before a grand jury. The right-wing Indianapolis press, which was aligned with the state's U.S. senators, used the scandal as an excuse to kick Craig one last time.

Fed up with Indiana politics, Craig left the state and worked as a lawyer in Virginia and Los Angeles before taking up the mantle of elder statesman in his hometown of Brazil.

Accomplishments: Much like the current occupant of the governor's office, Handley was a principled conservative who opposed Indiana taking federal funds for anything ... except when he didn't.

Unlike Gov. Craig, Handley's political views were more in line with the dominant Hoosier Republican ideology of his day. In fact, Handley worked to undermine Craig despite serving as his lieutenant governor. When Handley sought the nomination for governor in 1956, Craig said he would support any candidate but Handley. Nevertheless, Handley was elected and backed by large GOP legislative majorities who shared his points of view.

In office, Handley enacted Indiana's first right-to-work law, aimed at diminishing the political power of labor unions, built the state office building Craig wanted and expanded state programs for the mentally ill and disabled.

But his principles took a hit when he pushed through a 50 percent hike in the state's gasoline and income taxes, in part to balance the state's budget but also to eliminate some state property taxes. The move earned him the nickname, "High Tax Harold."

He also accepted $1 billion in federal funds to begin construction of the interstate highway system in Indiana, despite his opposition to anything being done by the federal government. Handley said roads were an exception to his belief that federal expansion is "part of the master plan of the radicals to disrupt the American constitutional government."

Two years into his term, Handley decided to run for the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by his friend and mentor William Jenner. The governor was clobbered by rising Democratic star Vance Hartke, and the GOP even lost control of the House in the 1958 elections, due in part to labor fury over the right-to-work law.

Following the defeat, Handley returned to the governor's office the next day determined to finish his term successfully despite a slowdown in the nation's economy that saw unemployment rise throughout Indiana.

Handley and his wife operated an Indianapolis public relations firm after leaving office. He later collaborated with his successor on several proposed amendments to the Indiana Constitution.

Other offices held: State representative, 1941-43; U.S. attorney, 1950-52; state senator, 1955-61

Accomplishments: The institutions and tax structure of Indiana government today largely came into being during the Welsh administration.

Facing a significant budget shortfall upon taking office, Welsh professionalized the Department of Revenue and began cross-checking Indiana tax returns with federal filings to try to reduce the deficit without raising taxes, something the Republican-controlled Legislature was reluctant to do. However, when Welsh presented the Legislature with details of everything that would have to be cut without tax reform, they agreed to work with him, and together crafted the "2-2-2 Plan."

The new tax law created a 2 percent state sales tax, 2 percent income tax and 2 percent corporate income tax, while clearing away a host of older, uncollectable taxes. While this improved the state's finances, Welsh got tagged by Hoosiers as a tax hiker, and vehicle bumper stickers proclaimed Indiana "the land of taxes."

Welsh streamlined state government by eliminating numerous party patronage posts, especially at the highway department, and replaced them with experienced professionals. A product of these reforms was the Department of Administration, created to manage state government purchasing, hiring and properties.

Welsh also oversaw the consolidation of hundreds of small school corporations, the development of regional university campuses to bring higher education closer to Hoosiers, as well as the creation of what would become Ivy Tech Community College.

However, Welsh said his greatest accomplishment was passage of civil rights laws to prevent discrimination in employment, housing and public accommodation based on race and several other characteristics. To enforce those laws, he created a Civil Rights Commission to issue cease-and-desist orders when Hoosier civil rights were violated. He further stood for civil rights by running as President Lyndon Johnson's proxy and defeating racist Alabama Gov. George Wallace in the nonbinding 1964 Indiana presidential primary.

Blocked by term limits from running for re-election, Welsh served in several minor federal posts after leaving office. He won the 1972 Democratic nomination for governor, but was unable to regain his old office in that landslide election year for Republicans.

Accomplishments: A lifelong Democrat who used his Depression-era work as a Federal Land Bank attorney to get to know Hoosiers everywhere, Branigin was able to turn his "common man" reputation into an election victory in the Democratic sweep of 1964.

Unlike the liberals elected nationally, Branigin was a Hoosier Democrat, which essentially is a moderate Republican in most other states. In fact, one Democratic Indiana lawmaker, enjoying majority control of both chambers in 1965, quipped that Branigin was "the best Republican governor the Democrats ever had." Still, among his first actions in office was signing the repeal of Indiana's anti-union right-to-work law.

But most often Branigin was spotted with his veto pen. He rejected more than 100 Legislature-approved proposals, the most for a one-term governor.

Among the measures Branigin vetoed was legislation legalizing abortion in Indiana, prohibiting the use of strikebreakers in labor disputes and outlawing the death penalty.

He was notoriously stingy in spending state funds, personally reviewing employee travel reimbursement requests and insisting on traveling by slow trains instead of costly airplanes.

At the same time, Branigin won approval of legislation providing more scholarships to Indiana college students, repealing the personal property tax on household goods, improving state prisons, parks, highways and forests, and expanding the powers of the Civil Rights Commission.

Branigin hoped to secure the vice presidential nomination in 1968, but that dream got lost amid President Lyndon Johnson's decision not to seek re-election, the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy and the Democratic Convention riots in Chicago.

He returned to Lafayette and resumed his law practice after his term as governor ended.

Other offices held: State senator, 1952-54; secretary of state, 1967-69

Accomplishments: The Indiana governor to live the longest, many consider Whitcomb's life outside the Statehouse far more interesting than his four years as the state's final chief executive barred from seeking immediate re-election.

During World War II, Whitcomb was an aerial navigator on a B-17 bomber that was captured by the Japanese in the battle for Corregidor. Two weeks after being taken prisoner, Whitcomb escaped and swam eight miles through shark-infested waters to the Philippines mainland. He was recaptured, but escaped again, eventually fighting with irregular Filipino soldiers until he managed to get to China and from there return to the United States.

His autobiography, "Escape from Corregidor," details Whitcomb's war experiences.

Back home in Indiana, Whitcomb parlayed one term in the state Senate into election as secretary of state, from which he launched a bid for governor. Whitcomb's ambition clashed with GOP House Speaker Otis Bowen who wanted to be governor himself.

Whitcomb's conservative principles, pledge to never raise taxes and small-town appeal helped him win election. But Bowen, backed by a new crop of urban Republicans, stymied Whitcomb's legislative agenda. Forced to manage the state using only the governor's authority, Whitcomb consolidated state government offices, reduced salaries and closed tax loopholes.

During a late-1960s era of protest, Whitcomb's cutbacks got him an earful of anger from teachers, poverty groups, black activists and university students. However, he did get some credit from state employees for ending the "2 Percent Club," which required them to kick back 2 percent of their wages to the political party in power.

He computerized Bureau of Motor Vehicles records, established the Indiana Commission for Higher Education and cracked down on no-show state employees. He also kept his pledge not to raise taxes.

A major point of contention during Whitcomb's administration was daylight saving time. He vetoed a legislative initiative to prohibit daylight saving time in the state's 80 Eastern Time Zone counties, and was accused of selling out to television networks that favored daylight saving time. The GOP Legislature overrode that veto, and most of Indiana did not follow daylight saving time for the next four decades. However, the 12 Central Time Zone counties did follow daylight saving time, making it sometimes impossible to know what it time it was in Indiana.

After leaving office, Whitcomb lost the 1976 Republican U.S. Senate primary to Dick Lugar.

In 1987, he quit his job setting up radio stations for a Christian broadcasting network and took up sailing. He sailed across the Mediterranean Sea to start, and in 1990, at age 72, sailed solo across the Atlantic Ocean.

Six years later Whitcomb attempted to sail solo around the world, but his ship sank after striking a coral reef in the Gulf of Suez.

He then returned to Indiana and moved to a log cabin in the Hoosier National Forest where he lived simply, with limited electricity, just enjoying nature.

Accomplishments: A medical doctor who took a clinical approach to improving Indiana, Bowen was the first governor to serve two consecutive terms after the 1851 Constitution's prohibition on re-election was repealed.

His journey to the governor's office began in the Indiana House, where he led a powerful Republican caucus. It wasn't always that way; Bowen became GOP leader after the 1964 Democratic landslide reduced the party's House membership to 22 out of 100 seats. The 1968 elections grew the GOP's majority, and Bowen actually stood up to Gov. Whitcomb and refused to advance the fellow Republican's agenda, partially in retaliation for Whitcomb denying Bowen the gubernatorial nomination that year.

Bowen easily was elected governor in 1972, defeating Democratic former Gov. Matt Welsh.

In office, Bowen quickly won approval for his plan to reduce property taxes in exchange for a sales tax hike. National issues, namely Watergate and the resignation of President Richard Nixon, soon complicated Bowen's administration as Democrats won control of the Indiana House. But Bowen cruised to re-election in 1976, and within two years his Republican allies regained the legislative majorities and controlled every executive office in state government.

Bowen said his top accomplishment was upgrading the state park system, including the creation of White River State Park in downtown Indianapolis. He also oversaw completion of Indiana's interstate highway system, merged several road agencies into the Department of Transportation, adopted 911 as the statewide emergency telephone number and increased the availability of emergency medical services.

In addition, he used his experience as a doctor to press for caps on medical malpractice claims, a statute later used as a model across the country.

Bowen returned to medicine and teaching after his two terms as governor ended.

President Ronald Reagan later tapped him to lead the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, becoming the first doctor to hold that position.

Accomplishments: Running on the slogan of "Let's Keep a Good Thing Going," Orr was swept into office on the coattails of Gov. Bowen's two successful terms and Republican President Ronald Reagan's 1980 election.

He soon was challenged by an economic slump that led to widespread unemployment, cratered tax revenues and sent Indiana's balance sheet $450 million into the red. Orr proposed simple spending cuts and government reorganization to fix the state's budget woes and would not consider tax increases, even though teachers and other state workers were screaming for pay hikes amid double-digit inflation.

Facing the prospect of continuing budget deficits, Orr called a special special of the General Assembly (after Republicans maintained control in the 1982 elections) that raised the income tax to 3 percent, from 1.9 percent, and hiked the state sales tax to 5 percent. Those tax hikes nearly cost Orr re-election in 1984, but Reagan's landslide victory in Indiana and 48 other states provided the necessary margin of victory to carry Orr into a second term.

He turned his focus to education and enacted a "Prime Time" grant program to reduce class sizes in Indiana schools. His "A+" program also began school accountability in the state, measuring student achievement through standardized tests.

As the economy improved in his second term, Orr looked overseas to lure new manufacturing investments to Indiana. He landed a Japanese auto manufacturer and persuaded Hoosiers to give up some of their casual racism for good jobs in what soon would be a global economy.

During his terms, the Indiana Ports Commission also completed construction work at Burns Harbor and the two Ohio River ports.

Orr was named ambassador to Singapore after leaving office. He later worked as an economic development consultant in Indianapolis.

Other offices held: Secretary of state, 1987-89; U.S. senator, 1999-2011

Accomplishments: The first Democratic governor in two decades, Bayh maintained his predecessors' conservative approach toward leading Indiana.

That style was necessary, in part, due to solid Republican control of the Senate and a 50-50 split in the House, that sometimes saw Democrats running the show and sometimes had Republicans in charge.

Bayh focused on education as governor, creating the 21st Century Scholars Program that provides a college scholarship to Indiana students who earn good grades in high school and avoid destructive behavior. He also increased state spending on schools, though not as much as many of his Democratic supporters would have liked. Bayh led Indiana in adopting the "Core 40" high school curriculum and added a writing section to the ISTEP standardized test.

He reorganized state government to reduce spending, consolidating numerous state welfare agencies into the Family and Social Services Administration. With a better grasp on how Indiana supported its least fortunate, Bayh promoted a Hoosier developed welfare-to-work program that soon was emulated nationally by Democratic President Bill Clinton. However, the true success of Bayh's program (and Clinton's) is hard to measure as the booming 1990s economy likely would have reduced the state's welfare rolls regardless of political changes.

Bayh continued Gov. Orr's outreach to foreign firms and persuaded Toyota and Chrysler to open auto manufacturing plants in the state. He also permitted state employees to join labor unions, but did little to stop GOP-forced changes in the prevailing wage statute.

Over his objections, state lawmakers authorized riverboat casino gambling in Indiana. Bayh later took credit for a $1.6 billion state surplus fueled in large part by gambling revenues.

He left office with an 80 percent approval rating, a status he used to win the U.S. Senate seat previous held by his father, Birch Bayh.

In the Senate, Evan Bayh continued to be a moderate Democrat regularly willing to work across the aisle with Republicans. He was widely considered a potential vice presidential nominee in 2008, for both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, but the job went to U.S. Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del.

Bayh announced shortly before the 2010 filing deadline that he would not run for a third term in the Senate, leaving Hoosier Democrats scrambling for a candidate to try and hold on to Bayh's seat (they would be unsuccessful).

Bayh today works as an attorney and commentator on national news programs. He still has $10 million remaining in his federal campaign fund that he reportedly is holding onto in case one of his children wants to run for office someday.

Accomplishments: A pragmatic politician with a quarter-century of experience working across party lines in the Senate, O'Bannon led Indiana into the 21st century.

He was the natural choice to succeed Bayh, under whom O'Bannon served eight years as lieutenant governor. And he largely followed Bayh's example, governing the state with an eye toward minimizing spending, reducing taxes and focusing on education.

O'Bannon was helped by Indiana's strong financial condition, which allowed him to hire 500 more police officers, increase funding for schools and extend health insurance to more low-income residents, even while returning $1.5 billion to Hoosier taxpayers. But in his final budget (enacted in April 2001), O'Bannon and state lawmakers were stung after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks shook the state's economy and reduced revenue, sending Indiana's finances into the red (a disaster the Indiana Republican Party today still blames on Democratic leadership).

O'Bannon suspended collection of the state's gas tax when gas prices "soared" near $2 in 2000, a move that proved popular with the voters who re-elected him that year.

In 2002, to cope with court-ordered property reassessments that sent property tax bills soaring, O'Bannon worked with legislators to craft a property tax relief plan that increased sales, cigarette and gasoline taxes.

On education, O'Bannon created the Indiana Education Roundtable (eliminated in 2015) that brought state and local elected officials, education leaders and the business community together to shape state education policy. He also championed full-day kindergarten and in 1999 proposed spending $111 million to implement it, only to see the Republican-controlled Senate nix his plan.

In 2003, the governor suffered a stroke while attending a trade conference in Chicago and died five days later. He was the first chief executive to die office since Gov. Alvin Hovey in 1891.

More than 5,000 people attended O'Bannon's memorial service at the Statehouse.

Accomplishments: The unexpected death of Gov. O'Bannon thrust Kernan, a man who was 16 months away from his planned exit from politics, into the most important role in the state.

Kernan quickly worked across party lines to ensure Indiana government continued to operate without interruption, despite the loss of its chief executive. He'd later say his proudest moment as governor was ensuring the transition following the first death of a governor in office in more than a century went off without a hitch.

After a few months as governor, Kernan changed his mind and decided to seek election in his own right in 2004. He selected Kathy Davis, a former state budget director, as his lieutenant governor (the first woman to hold the post) and set about racking up some accomplishments.

That was easier said than done with a Republican-controlled Senate and closely divided House unable to agree on much of anything. Nevertheless, Kernan promoted the development of Ivy Tech Community College, tried and failed to revive O'Bannon's full-day kindergarten plan and worked to improve high school graduation rates.

He also focused on luring businesses to Indiana using targeted tax breaks and other incentives.

A military veteran who spent 10 months and 20 days as a prisoner during the Vietnam War, Kernan made sure Hoosiers deploying to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq during his term were taken care of financially.

Kernan was unsuccessful in his election bid, though he remains an elder statesman among Hoosiers. In 2007, he teamed with Republican Supreme Court Chief Justice Randall Shepard to devise recommendations for improving local government in Indiana (some of which were implemented).

He also has served as president of the South Bend Silver Hawks minor league baseball team, now the South Bend Cubs.

Other offices held: U.S. Office of Management and Budget director, 2001-03

Accomplishments: The first Republican governor in 16 years, Daniels was one of the most transformative chief executives in Indiana history.

Never having held elected office, Daniels ruthlessly took on Indiana's entrenched political system with the zeal of business leader by seeking to cut spending, improve operations and deliver results for shareholder citizens.

On his first day in office, he created the Office of Management and Budget to consolidate control of state finances in the governor's office and seek out waste. He also permitted state employees to opt out of union membership, which nearly all did.

Daniels sought to fix the state's post-9/11 budget deficit immediately and proposed raising taxes on Hoosiers earning more than $100,000 a year. Despite having a Republican-controlled Legislature at his disposal, he was rebuffed and had to settle for balancing the budget over time.

However, he did win lawmakers over to adopting daylight saving time, making Indiana more business-friendly by making it possible to know what time it was all across the state. To ensure businesses heard about that, and the rest of Indiana's story, Daniels reorganized the state's commerce agency into the corporate-like Indiana Economic Development Corp.

Faced with limited state resources and almost unlimited transportation needs, Daniels convinced the Legislature to allow him to lease the Indiana Toll Road to a private operator. The deal netted Indiana $3.85 billion that Daniels poured into a "Major Moves" construction program that took long dreamed-of road projects, such as Interstate 69 between Indianapolis and Evansville, and made them reality. He also persuaded the federal government to permit Indiana to use Medicaid funds for the Healthy Indiana Plan, a high-deductible health insurance-like program for the working poor.

Daniels oversaw a huge shift in education policy during his two terms. As part of a deal to cap property taxes at 1 percent for homeowners, 2 percent for apartments and 3 percent for businesses, Daniels agreed to have the state take over all funding for teacher salaries from local school corporations. To pay for that change, he authorized an increase in the state's sales tax rate to 7 percent.

State control of education spending permitted huge growth in charter schools, which are publicly funded but operate mostly outside state regulations, since the state simply could direct money for teachers to the new institutions. Similarly, this allowed for the creation of a private school voucher program on Daniels' watch.

Daniels and Tony Bennett, the GOP state superintendent of public instruction elected in 2008, teamed up to replace Indiana's education standards with the Common Core State Standards, a change that would prove controversial in future years. They also eased the process for state takeover of failing schools and tied teacher pay to student performance on standardized tests, all while keeping school funding relatively flat.

Daniels provoked controversy in 2011 and 2012 by supporting enactment of a right-to-work law. For six weeks in 2011, union members packed the Statehouse protesting the proposal and House Democrats relocated to Illinois to prevent the necessary quorum to do business. After the governor blasted Democrats for walking off the job, right-to-work eventually passed in 2012.

The Republican-controlled Legislature in 2011 also approved a plan to defund Planned Parenthood's sexually transmitted disease testing and other programs as punishment for their providing abortion services (which aren't state funded). The defunding law was struck down by a federal judge in 2013, but not before Planned Parenthood was forced to close a health clinic in Scott County, which would become the site of a major HIV outbreak in 2015.

Daniels was widely touted as a potential presidential candidate in 2012 and he worked with advisers to sketch out a campaign strategy. However, in the end, his wife and daughters persuaded him not to run.

Instead, he was appointed president of Purdue University where he continues to innovate in higher education, just as he did in state government.

Accomplishments: An ambitious congressman and aspiring presidential candidate who returned home to check the "executive experience" box on his electoral resume, Pence has struggled to break free of Daniels' lengthy shadow during his three years in office.

Pence campaigned on immediately reducing personal income taxes by 10 percent, claiming that would spur economic growth. Despite having supermajorities of Republicans in the House and Senate, he could not convince them to go along with his plan. He settled for a face-saving 5 percent rate cut spread over four years.

Undeterred, in 2014 (a non-budget year), Pence proposed eliminating the business personal property tax, which annually provides more than $1 billion in revenue to local governments and school corporations. Again, the GOP-controlled Legislature wasn't buying what Pence was selling, but approved a county-option tax repeal that no county opted to enact.

Pence drew significant unwanted attention to Indiana in 2015 when he signed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which was widely seen as licensing discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Hoosiers just as they were about to win federal approval to marry. Pence tried to defend the law on national television, but his performance generally was considered an embarrassment to the state.

Within hours, other state governments and businesses from around the world signaled their intention to boycott Indiana products and cancel travel to Indiana, days before Indianapolis was to host the NCAA Final Four men's basketball tournament. The Legislature quickly passed a RFRA "fix," but Pence, who previously endorsed the discredited idea of gay conversion therapy, has remained noncommittal on civil rights protections for LGBT Hoosiers.

Perhaps the governor's greatest accomplishment is one that he regularly seeks to wipe off the books.

The 2010 Affordable Care Act provides states significant federal funding if they expand Medicaid to include more of the working poor. Pence opposed the law in Congress and refused as governor to simply expand Indiana's Medicaid eligibility. Instead, he crafted a "consumer-driven" version of Medicaid expansion dubbed Healthy Indiana Plan 2.0 that requires participants pay small monthly premiums (less than $25) to remain on the program.

The delay in coming up with a Medicaid alternative meant Indiana gave up more than $1 billion in federal funds. But HIP 2.0 has proven popular since it began enrolling members in 2015. Nevertheless, Pence still says he wants the Affordable Care Act repealed in its entirety, which also would terminate HIP 2.0.

The governor also spent much of his first term clashing with Glenda Ritz, the Democratic state superintendent of public instruction, with Pence going so far as to create a shadow education agency that duplicated much of the work of Ritz's Department of Education. Separately, he has worked to turn Indiana education into job training, starting as early as third grade.

His re-election bid focuses on his enactment of two balanced budgets, though both provided sub-inflation level increases to most state agencies.

He appointed his wife, Karen Pence, the state's bicentennial ambassador, and together they plan to preside over hundreds of events in 2016 commemorating the 200th anniversary of Indiana's admission to the United States.

Accomplishments: As the first governor, Jennings began the process of making Indiana a full-fledged state by establishing a court system, organizing public schools, creating a state bank and planning road and other infrastructure improvements.

He was not entirely successful due to Indiana's limited financial resources and Hoosier opposition to taxes.

A slavery opponent, Jennings persuaded state lawmakers to prohibit the seizure of free black Hoosiers to sell into slavery, but he also endorsed heavy fines for people caught helping slaves escape to freedom in Indiana.

Lt. Gov. Christopher Harrison attempted to depose Jennings in 1818 after the governor was appointed by President James Madison to negotiate a land relinquishment treaty with the Miami Indians on behalf of the federal government. Harrison claimed the state constitution prohibited the governor from simultaneously holding federal office, and thus Jennings vacated his post.

The Legislature refused to consider the matter, and Jennings defeated Harrison in 1819 to win a second three-year term.

He resigned shortly before his term expired after being elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, where he supported federal funding to improve roads and river navigation through Indiana.

Other offices held: Warrick County treasurer, 1813-16; state representative, 1816-17; state senator, 1818-19; lieutenant governor 1819-24 (except for 84 days as governor); U.S. Rep., 1825-27, 1829-39

Accomplishments: Boon became governor following the resignation of Gov. Jonathan Jennings and "accomplished virtually nothing," according to historian Carl Kramer.

During his brief stint as the state's chief executive, Boon persuaded the General Assembly to add three House seats and one Senate seat for the new residents living in the central Indiana region recently ceded by the Miami Indians.

One month prior to becoming governor, Boon was re-elected lieutenant governor with Gov.-elect William Hendricks — enabling him to return to his former post after he finished Jennings' term. Boon nearly became governor again in 1824 but had resigned as lieutenant governor two days before Hendricks resigned, after both were elected to Congress.

In the U.S. House, Boon was a strong supporter of President Andrew Jackson and helped build the Democratic Party in Indiana.

He lost his House seat in 1839 and moved to Missouri to challenge that state's pro-slavery leadership. Boon died before he could mount a successful run for office in Missouri.

Accomplishments: A popular politician from the state's earliest days, Hendricks remains the only candidate for Indiana governor ever to run unopposed.

He inherited a state struggling to get out from under a $4,000 annual deficit and $25,000 debt after credit tightened during the Panic of 1819.

Hendricks righted the state's finances by improving tax collections and selling public lands, leaving Indiana with a balanced budget and reduced debt when he resigned in 1825 to serve in the U.S. Senate.

Hendricks championed road and canal projects at the state and federal levels to make it easier for Hoosiers to bring their homegrown products to market.

He personally organized the territorial and state laws into the first Indiana Code, though he controversially included a provision requiring any person speaking ill of the state's government or its officers be fined $500.

Hendricks also signed the law moving the state capital from the Ohio River town of Corydon to Indianapolis.

Accomplishments: The resignations of Gov. William Hendricks and Lt. Gov. Radliff Boon, following their 1825 elections to Congress, propelled James B. Ray, the state Senate president, into the governor's office at age 30 — the youngest governor in Indiana history.

Ray was elected governor in his own right later that year and re-elected to a second, three-year term in 1828. During his tenure, Ray saw the population of Indiana grow to 345,000 from 240,000, a 44 percent increase.

To accommodate the new Hoosiers, Ray promoted the return of free blacks to Africa and inked treaties with the Miami and Potawatomi Indians that forced the tribes from the northern third of the state. He then oversaw construction of the Michigan Road through those lands, eventually linking Lake Michigan with Indianapolis and on to the Ohio River.

At a time when Hoosier lawmakers and business leaders were investing heavily in canals as the future of transportation, Ray tried in vain to persuade them railroads were a cheaper, more efficient option.

He permitted the sale of state-owned lands to fund local public schools and elevated the state seminary at Bloomington into a college, now Indiana University.

Ray's willingness to claim allegiance to both political parties while posing as an independent repeatedly caused him headaches. He was falsely accused of bribe-taking by state Treasurer Samuel Merrill in 1827 and nearly impeached by the General Assembly for treaty negotiating on behalf of the federal government while holding state office.

Ray's final years as governor were unproductive as he believed the Legislature was allied against him, while lawmakers contended Ray was a hothead and unable to handle criticism.

Ray was the first governor to serve in the new capital at Indianapolis, but refused to live in the Governor's Mansion located in the center of the city, claiming it lacked privacy. The Indiana Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument now stands at that site.

Other offices held: Franklin County sheriff, 1820-24; state representative, 1824-25

Accomplishments: Continued growth in Indiana's population through the 1830s created a demand for state infrastructure to support the new residents and growing economy.

To meet that demand, Noble helped enact the Mammoth Internal Improvements Act of 1836. Under that law, Indiana borrowed $10 million (approximately $215 million in 2015 dollars), at 6 percent interest, to build a canal network stretching from the Ohio border west to Lafayette and then south to Evansville.

Noble believed canals were better than railroads because they permanently changed the state's landscape and were more in character with the languid pace of Hoosier life.

However, state lawmakers rejected Noble's plan to increase taxes to cover the debt, putting Indiana on a path toward bankruptcy after the nation's economy crashed in the Panic of 1837.

Noble's canals only ever were partially built and soon were made redundant by railroads.

Noble also oversaw construction of the first state capitol building in Indianapolis, an odd combination of a Parthenon-style temple with a rotunda at its center.

His attempts to establish dedicated state funding for local schools faltered due to Indiana's declining financial condition.

Accomplishments: The unsustainable costs of Gov. Noble's state infrastructure projects dominated his lieutenant governor's three-year term as Indiana's chief executive.

Wallace initially attempted to prioritize canal work by ensuring the most potentially profitable sections were built first. But the failure to connect the canals to Lake Erie doomed the entire system by 1840.

Indiana was stretched far beyond its financial means trying to repay the $10 million it borrowed for the improvements. For example, in 1838 Indiana already owed $193,000 in interest, in a year when state tax collections totaled just $45,000.

To preserve its chances of holding the governor's office as Hoosiers became aware of the state's dire financial condition, the Whig Party refused in 1840 to nominate Wallace for a second term.

Instead, he ran for Congress, where Wallace supported federal funding for Samuel Morse's ultimately successful research into telegraph communications.

Wallace also is remembered for using his power as governor to order 800 Potawatomi Indians out of the state under armed guard on a forced march to Kansas known as the Trail of Death, which killed 42 of them.

Governorships seemed to run in Wallace's family. His brother, William Wallace, served as territorial governor in Washington and Idaho, and his son, Lew Wallace, author of the novel "Ben Hur," was governor of New Mexico Territory from 1878-81.

Accomplishments: The Whig Party decision to replace Gov. Wallace on the 1840 ballot with Samuel Bigger, a judge who had no direct hand in the state financial calamity caused by the 1836 Mammoth Internal Improvements Act, paved the way to victory.

Bigger, and Whig candidates across Indiana, likely also got an electoral boost that year thanks to enthusiasm associated with the election of Hoosier President William Henry Harrison.

As governor, Bigger was unable to get the state's canal debt under control as interest continued accumulating at a rate of $500,000 a year.

Indiana finally defaulted on its debt payments in July 1841, though a final settlement with the state's creditors would not be reached until 1847.

Bigger attempted to improve the state's finances by cracking down on unassessed properties and raising assessments in regions where properties were deliberately undervalued. That proved extremely unpopular with Hoosiers, and the law providing for county property tax equalization boards was repealed after just one year.

Nevertheless, Bigger nearly won re-election in 1843 save for his disparaging remark about the intelligence of Methodists, one of the state's most popular religions, which doomed his campaign.

Other offices held: Monroe County prosecutor, 1826-29; state senator, 1830-36; commissioner of the U.S. General Land Office, 1836-41; U.S. senator, 1849-52

Accomplishments: After three consecutive Whig governors bankrupted Indiana by borrowing to pay for unrealistic infrastructure improvements, Hoosiers elected their first Democratic governor to right the ship of state.

To begin, Whitcomb sharply reduced the benefits and salaries of state officials, incurring the ire of the General Assembly. He then worked throughout 1845 and into 1846 to settle the state's liabilities with bondholders, who took ownership of the Wabash and Erie Canal in exchange for eliminating half of Indiana's debt.

The state still was broke in 1846 when the United States declared war on Mexico and President James K. Polk requested Indiana provide three regiments of volunteers. So Whitcomb personally borrowed $10,000 from the Indiana State Bank and arranged credit at other banks to outfit the Hoosier troops who had been training using cornstalks as guns.

During his tenure, Whitcomb approved laws creating schools for deaf and blind Hoosiers, along with an asylum for the mentally insane. He also called for a regular system of financing public education and the creation of a state superintendent of public instruction to oversee it, two provisions that would be included in the 1851 Indiana Constitution.

Whitcomb resigned with one year remaining in his second term after the Legislature elected him to the U.S. Senate.

In 1868, his daughter, Martha Whitcomb, married Claude Matthews, who was elected Indiana's 23rd governor in 1892.

Accomplishments: The resignation of Gov. Whitcomb to take a seat in the U.S. Senate elevated his lieutenant governor to the top job for the one year remaining in Whitcomb's term.

As governor, Dunning effectively handled two incredibly significant matters in that short time: finalizing the settlement of Indiana's canal debt; and deciding how delegates to the 1850-51 constitutional convention would be selected.

He also led Indiana in opposing the expansion of slavery in the western territories and stressed the urgency of state support for public education, as 1 in 5 Hoosiers were found to be illiterate in 1850.

After leaving office, Dunning participated in the constitutional convention and won approval for provisions banning "special legislation" that applies to only one locality and requiring the state pay for a system of free public schools.

Dunning was elected as an independent to the state senate in 1861 and strongly supported the Union cause at the Legislature during the U.S. Civil War.

He was the only person ever to serve as governor, lieutenant governor and in both the Senate and the House under Indiana's original constitution.

Other offices held: State representative 1833-34, 1836-37; state senator 1839-42; U.S. rep. 1843-45; U.S. minister to Prussia, 1857-61, 1865-67; U.S. senator 1862-63

Accomplishments: In 1849, Hoosiers approved the call for a state constitutional convention and elected Wright, who would spend his two terms in office refashioning Indiana to conform with the governing charter adopted in 1851.

The new Constitution required Indiana establish free public schools, the management of which Wright delegated to townships, overseen by a state school board, and funded by more accurate property tax assessments. The tax increases were required because of a new prohibition on state borrowing following the canal debacles of the 1830s and 40s.

Separately, Wright took advantage of another constitutional provision barring the entry of new black residents into the state (since repealed) to promote the resettlement of former slaves in Africa.

Wright touted Hoosier self-sufficiency and encouraged Indiana residents to only purchase goods made in the state. In addition, he distrusted banks and repeatedly vetoed banking regulations approved by the General Assembly (his vetoes were overridden).

During his tenure as governor, Wright regularly conflicted with U.S. Sen. Jesse Bright, the leader of the Indiana Democratic Party. Bright was sympathetic to southern slave owners and supported popular sovereignty to determine whether slavery should be permitted in western territories.

Wright was a Union man in the years leading up to the Civil War. In 1850, he even commissioned a stone for the Washington Monument reading "Indiana knows no North, no South, nothing but the Union."

As the Democratic Party fell apart over slavery in the late 1850s, Wright tended to favor the Know-Nothing, and later Republican, positions. However, the new constitution limited governors to one, four-year term and Wright had to leave office. (His first three years as governor were under the 1816 Constitution which permitted multiple three-year terms).

Wright later represented the United States as minister to Prussia (now Germany), but would return home and replace Bright in the U.S. Senate after Bright was expelled for helping to sell arms to the Confederacy.

Accomplishments: As the United States moved toward Civil War in the 1850s, Indiana's fifth consecutive Democratic governor was challenged by an intra-party civil war over slavery.

Willard, like most southern Hoosiers, supported popular sovereignty to determine whether slavery would be permitted in Nebraska and Kansas, where battles over slavery among new settlers in "Bleeding Kansas" already had turned violent.

After winning election, the new governor demonstrated his southern sympathies by traveling to Jackson, Miss. and proclaiming his support for slavery in the South, and promising to return any slaves that escaped to freedom in Indiana back into bondage.

Northern Indiana Democrats did not share Willard's positions on slavery and began coalescing into a fusion People's Party, alongside former Whigs, Know-Nothings, abolitionists and independents. In 1858, they would rename themselves the Indiana Republican Party.

Willard continually battled with People's Party members in the General Assembly, so much so that the Legislature was unable to elect a U.S. Senator for two years, leaving Indiana with only one.

However, in 1859 Williard succeeded in winning approval for his plan to construct the Indiana State Prison in Michigan City.

Also that year, his brother-in-law, John Cook, was arrested with John Brown and the anti-slavery raiders at Harper's Ferry, Va. Despite Willard's support for slavery, he hired an attorney and sought a pardon for his wife's abolitionist brother. He was unsuccessful and Cook was hanged.

Willard, who had significant respiratory problems, would die in office one year later shortly after suffering a lung hemorrhage during a speech to Democrats in Columbus.

Accomplishments: Dubbed the "accidental governor" by Indiana University professor James St. Clair, Hammond was the first Indiana lieutenant governor to succeed a dead chief executive.

Reportedly, Hammond wasn't even supposed to be Gov. Willard's No. 2. The Democrats' preferred candidate in 1856, John C. Walker of LaPorte County, withdrew after it was discovered he was too young to hold office.

Democrats then turned to Hammond, a former Whig who shared Willard's pro-slavery views, because he offered voters the appearance of Hoosier unity even as the state and nation marched toward civil war.

Hammond did little during his three months in office. In his only address to the General Assembly, he urged legislators to support the Union above all and recommended they send delegates to an ultimately unsuccessful last-ditch conference of border states hoping to avert war.

Hammond did not run for governor in his own right because Hoosier Democrats already had nominated Thomas Hendricks in 1860, prior to Willard's death and Hammond's promotion.

Health issues prompted Hammond to move to Denver, Colo., where he died in 1874.

He is not the namesake of the city of Hammond. Lake County's most populous municipality was named for the George H. Hammond meat-packing plant that began the city's industrialization in 1869.

Other offices held: State representative, 1838-39; U.S. Rep, 1840-43; president of first Republican National Convention, 1856; U.S. senator-designate (seat denied), 1857; U.S. senator, 1861-67

Accomplishments: In 1860, on the eve of the Civil War, the new Republican Party was eager to wrest control of the Indiana governor's office from the Democrats who had held it for nearly two decades.

Oliver Morton, the party's losing 1856 candidate, wanted to run a second time, but party leaders decided Lane offered the best shot at uniting all the factions that made up the new GOP.

Lane and Morton, however, struck a deal where Morton would run as Lane's lieutenant governor, and Lane would put himself up as a candidate for U.S. Senate if Republicans won control of the General Assembly. That's exactly what happened, and two days after being sworn in as governor Lane resigned to represent Indiana in Washington, D.C — making him the shortest-tenured governor in state history.

Prior to leaving, Lane urged the Legislature to stand with the Union, and warned that secession will lead "directly to the utter ruin of all our institutions."

In the Senate, Lane worked to advance the agenda of President Abraham Lincoln, a fellow Kentuckian turned Hoosier, and thwart the Confederacy.

Accomplishments: The state's most powerful and controversial governor, Morton guided Indiana through the Civil War and beyond.

He was a close ally of President Abraham Lincoln, a fellow Republican, and promptly pledged 10,000 Hoosiers to meet Lincoln's call for 75,000 volunteers after war broke out in 1861. Morton also established a state arsenal, without legislative approval, to equip Indiana's ill-provisioned troops.

He cultivated a reputation as "the soldier's friend" by traveling to battlefield hospitals, establishing a state relief program and through the Indiana Sanitary Commission distributing food, clothes, Bibles, writing paper and tobacco to Hoosier troops.

At the same time, Morton sought to undermine his Democratic political opponents by explicitly accusing them of disloyalty, and even suggesting they would side with the Confederates if Indiana were invaded.

Union losses early in the war and Lincoln's decision to change the justification for the war — from the popular preserving the Union to the decidedly unpopular call to end slavery — produced Democratic legislative majorities in 1863.

Not wanting to lose his near-dictatorial powers in military and state personnel matters, Morton proceeded to shun the General Assembly. He refused to give his State of the State address in person and directed legislative Republicans to boycott meetings.

GOP lawmakers even left Indianapolis at Morton's direction and relocated to the Kentucky border for two years, prepared to flee the state, if necessary, to ensure the Legislature would not have a quorum to do business.

As a result, Indiana did not enact a state budget, leaving Morton to borrow money wherever he could find it to keep Indiana operating. Because he did not trust the Democratic state treasurer, Morton essentially ran the state himself out of a safe in his office.

Morton's Democratic fear-mongering largely fell apart as a serious matter in July 1863 when southern Hoosiers fought off Confederate invaders in Morgan's Raid. Nevertheless, Morton used the threat of Democratic sedition, and the timely return home of some 9,000 soldiers, to win election as governor in his own right in 1864.

Attempts to use the one-term limit of the 1851 Constitution to prevent Morton from running again came to naught as Morton persuaded voters that he only was elected lieutenant governor in 1860, despite having served just two days in that office before advancing to the top job.

After the Civil War, Morton continued to pound Democrats, calling the party in 1866: "A common sewer and loathsome receptacle into which is emptied every element of treason North and South."

He resigned as governor in 1867 after the General Assembly, now back in Republican hands, elected him to the U.S. Senate.

In Washington, Morton quickly changed his opposition to black voting rights and joined with the Radical Republicans to win passage of the 15th Amendment. Morton even returned to Indianapolis to engineer the amendment's approval by the Indiana Legislature after Hoosier Democratic lawmakers resigned en masse to prevent a quorum.

In 1876, Morton ran for president and came in second place on the first nominating ballot at the Republican Party convention that ultimately chose Rutherford B. Hayes as its candidate.

Following the disputed contest between Hayes and Democrat Samuel Tilden, who got more popular votes than Hayes, Morton served on the commission that cut a deal to make Hayes president in exchange for ending the Reconstruction policies Morton supported to remake the former Confederacy.

Morton today is remembered with a large statute outside the east entrance to the Statehouse that proclaims him "The Great War Governor."

Morton High School in Hammond, whose sports teams are the "Governors," also is named in his honor.

Accomplishments: One of the earliest members of the Indiana Republican Party, Baker was the party's first nominee for lieutenant governor in 1856, alongside gubernatorial candidate Oliver Morton.

They did not win, but over the next decade Morton (who became governor in 1861) and Baker maintained a political partnership that served each other, and Indiana, quite well.

During the Civil War, Baker was colonel of the First Indiana Cavalry and also served as Morton's eyes and ears among the Hoosier troops. He was considered a master of organizing, which helped ensure provisions for soldiers sent from Indiana got to their intended recipients.

Morton chose Baker as his running mate in his victorious 1864 campaign. When Morton suffered a stroke shortly thereafter and left Indiana to seek treatment in Paris, Baker became acting governor for five months.

He changed Morton's policy of take-no-prisoners political confrontation into one approaching bipartisan cooperation. Baker officially ascended to the top job after Morton was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1867.

As governor, Baker established many of the state institutions that would serve Hoosiers for decades to come, including Indiana State University, Purdue University, Indiana Soldiers' and Sailors' Children's Home, Indiana Boys' School and a women's prison.

He won election in his own right in 1868, defeating Democrat Thomas Hendricks by just 961 votes — the closest gubernatorial election in Indiana history.

When legislative Democrats resigned en masse in 1869 to prevent ratification of the 15th Amendment, providing the right to vote to black men, Baker ordered immediate new elections. After the Democrats who just quit won re-election and resigned again to prevent a quorum to do business, Baker passed the amendment through an all-Republican Legislature.

That questionable move was overlooked by congressional Republicans eager for ratification.

Baker also championed women's suffrage four decades before they were permitted to vote.

He established the Governor's Portrait Collection and allocated state revenue to create paintings of his 14 predecessors as Indiana's chief executive.

In 1873, after leaving office, Baker joined the Indianapolis law firm run by Hendricks, his successor as governor.

Other offices held: State representative, 1848-49; delegate to Indiana constitutional convention, 1850-51; U.S. Rep., 1851-55; commissioner of U.S. General Land Office, 1855-59; U.S. Senator, 1863-69; U.S. vice president, 1885

Accomplishments: The nephew of Indiana's third governor, Hendricks was elected the state's chief executive on his third try after losing in the 1860 and 1868 contests.

He was the first Democrat elected in a northern state after the Civil War, as Hoosiers remained outraged at Gov. Baker's and former Gov. Morton's maneuvering to pass the 15th Amendment allowing black men to vote.

Unlike prior Democratic governors, Hendricks did not support slavery, but neither did he believe in racial equality. He infamously declared, "This is a white man's government, made by the white man, for the white man."

His term in office mainly was spent coping with the effects of the Panic of 1873, which produced high unemployment, labor unrest and declining farm prices. Hendricks even twice called out the state militia to break up labor protests in Clay County and Logansport.

The prohibition of alcohol became a major issue during his administration, and Hendricks approved legislation permitting each locality to decide the issue, even though he favored state regulation. When the local option quickly became unworkable, Hendricks' preferred plan was adopted by the Legislature.

He also led the charge for a new Statehouse to replace the dilapidated 1835 structure that was wholly inadequate for a modern, growing state.

Hendricks was the Democratic nominee for U.S. vice president in the disputed election of 1876, which Morton helped throw to Republican Rutherford B. Hayes.

In 1884, Hendricks again was tapped by Democrats for vice president and this time elected with running mate Grover Cleveland.

However, Hendricks died unexpectedly during a trip home to Indianapolis just eight months after taking office.

A large monument to Hendricks stands on the southeast corner of the Statehouse grounds facing his hometown of Shelbyville.

Accomplishments: Williams was the first farmer elected governor of Indiana, and it showed both in his policies and his pants.

Faced with a struggling state economy due to the Panic of 1873, Williams renewed his emphasis on the thrift and budget-cutting that started when he was elected to the Legislature, and his first vote was against spending state funds to provide lawmakers copies of the Indianapolis newspapers.

That fiscal focus came through most significantly in 1877, when Williams approved the $2 million appropriation to build the current Statehouse, and put the burden of cost overruns on its architect. Ten years later, when the Statehouse was completed, some $20,000 of that original appropriation was returned to the treasury.

However, Williams is best known for his habit of wearing silk-lined denim suits, made from the wool of his own sheep. That practice that earned him the nickname "Blue Jeans" Williams.

He has been described by historians as Indiana's last pioneer governor, but also criticized for being out-of-touch with the industrialization and labor unrest of post-Civil War America.

Williams died in office with less than two months remaining in his term.

Accomplishments: The first Indiana governor to serve nonconsecutive terms, Gray finished the six weeks remaining in Gov. James Williams' tenure as the lamest of lame ducks.

That's because Gray was renominated for lieutenant governor in 1880, as running mate to former U.S. Rep. Franklin Landers, but the Democrats already had lost the election when Gray began his short stint as chief executive.

Four years later, the Democrats nominated Gray at the top of their ticket and he was elected governor in his own right.

During his career in politics, Gray never was one to shy away from bending the rules to enact his policy goals or in trying to advance to higher office, both of which would play a role in the defining moment of his governorship, known as the "Black Day of the General Assembly."

The origins of that Feb. 24, 1887, fiasco stretch back to 1869 when Gray, then the Republican Senate president, forced through ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment, giving black men the right to vote, over the objections and procedural impediments of Hoosier Democrats.

Despite becoming a Democrat in 1873, after being disgusted by the scandal-ridden administration of Republican President Ulysses S. Grant, Gray never was fully trusted by his fellow partisans due to his role in passing the Fifteenth Amendment.

Shortly after taking office the second time, Gray began maneuvering to win election to the U.S. Senate. However, Democrats threw a wrench in his plans when they persuaded Lt. Gov. Mahlon Manson to resign for a low-level federal job, leaving no clear successor if the Legislature elected Gray to the Senate.

Gray then used an attorney general's opinion to justify holding a special election for lieutenant governor in 1886. To Gray's surprise, Republican Robert Robertson was elected, along with a GOP-controlled House, further stymieing Gray's plans to get elected to the U.S. Senate.

The Democratic majority in the Indiana Senate refused to recognize Robertson's election, would not permit him to preside over the chamber and declared the lieutenant governor's office vacant. Robertson's House Republican allies separately declared him the duly elected lieutenant governor, a position confirmed by the Indiana Supreme Court on Feb. 23, 1887.

The next day, when Robertson attempted to take his post at the Senate rostrum, he was manhandled by a doorkeeper and pushed out of the chamber. Fistfights erupted among Democratic senators and some 600 Republicans who had packed the building to ensure Robertson took office. The fighting continued until one lawmaker pulled a gun and shot it into the ceiling, threatening to kill Republicans unless the fighting stopped.

The fighting instead moved to the House, where Democratic members were pulled outside by the Republican mob, beaten and threatened with death. Gray called in police reinforcements from Indianapolis and Marion County and eventually order was restored after some four hours of fighting.

Robertson never was permitted to preside over the Senate, Gray didn't win election to the U.S. Senate, and Indiana's GOP House and Democratic Senate even stopped communicating with each other — preventing much from getting done.

However, the episode did grow support nationwide for the popular election of U.S. senators, a reform that was still three decades away.

During his remaining years as governor, Gray approved an appropriation for the Soldiers and Sailors Monument located on the Indianapolis Circle, promoted election reforms and cracked down on burgeoning Ku Klux Klan activity in southern Indiana by banning three or more people from wearing masks if gathered for unlawful activities.

Gray twice was considered a candidate for U.S. vice president, in 1888 and 1892, but southern Democrats refused to support his nomination when they learned of his actions as a Republican to ratify the Fifteenth Amendment.

As a consolation prize, President Grover Cleveland in 1893 made Gray minister to Mexico, where he died of double pneumonia in 1895.

The president of Mexico, along with a Mexican army division, personally escorted Gray's body by train back to Indianapolis.

Accomplishments: Described by historian Jeffery Duvall as a governor of "great competence and little fanfare," Porter led Indiana during a time of increasing partisan conflict.

In 1881, his fellow Republicans proposed amending the state constitution to give women the right to vote and simultaneously prohibit alcohol consumption in the state.

Hoosier voters, in response, elected Democratic majorities to the General Assembly that promptly killed the odd hybrid amendment. For good measure, they also took away the governor's authority to appoint members to state boards and commissions, dramatically weakening the already limited powers of the governor.

For example, only a simple majority is required for the General Assembly to override a governor's veto, the same number of votes needed to pass legislation in the first place.

Facing a hostile Legislature, Porter scaled back any ambitions he might have had as governor and concentrated on merely managing the state during his four-year term.

He approved spending $5,000 to survey the Grand Kankakee Marsh in Northwest Indiana ahead of its eventually drainage. He also established state agencies for statistics, geology and natural history as well as a state board of health.

When the Ohio and Wabash rivers both flooded in 1883, Porter won legislative approval for a $100,000 relief program.

Prior to his election as governor, Porter was attorney for Lambdin Milligan in a U.S. Supreme Court case, known as Ex parte Milligan, that ruled unconstitutional the use of military tribunals to try citizens for crimes when civilian courts are operating in a time of war.

Milligan, a fierce critic of Indiana's Civil War Gov. Oliver Morton, was arrested in 1864 by then Gen. Alvin Hovey, a future Indiana governor, and convicted by a military tribunal for conspiring to support the Confederacy.

His death sentence was commuted by President Andrew Johnson, and in 1866 Milligan was set free by the U.S. Supreme Court, which concluded military justice is not appropriate when regular courts are open.

Milligan later sued Hovey for $500,000, alleging conspiracy, false imprisonment and libel. He was awarded $5.

Porter is not the namesake of Porter County, which honors U.S. Navy Capt. David Porter, who fought during the Barbary Wars and the War of 1812.

Accomplishments: Winning by just 1,149 more votes than his opponent, Hovey was another Republican governor who regularly clashed with the Democratic-controlled Legislature.

One area the two parties did agree on was election reform, following the hopelessly corrupt balloting in 1888 that helped propel Hoosier Republican Benjamin Harrison into the White House.

Under Hovey, Indiana was among the earliest states to end party printing of election ballots that were cast in public (to make sure bought voters selected the right ballot), and instead began using state-printed ballots marked in secret for its elections. Indiana also began regulating who could enter polling places and limited campaigning at sites where voters cast their ballots.

Hovey and state lawmakers also cracked down on the practice of "white capping," a form of vigilante justice imposed by secret societies in southern Indiana that punished men and women (often with whipping) who failed to live up to the perceived standards required by Christian values and good citizenship.

Otherwise, conflicts between the governor and the Legislature over appointment powers and control of state agencies continued apace, often requiring intervention by the Indiana Supreme Court to settle.

Prior to taking office, Hovey was sponsor of an 1851 state constitutional section barring "negroes, mulattoes and Indians" from voting, and supported another provision prohibiting free blacks from settling in Indiana prior to the Civil War.

During the war, Hovey was appointed military commander of Indiana and targeted conspiracies, widely touted by Gov. Oliver Morton, of alleged Confederate sympathizers in the state, including Huntington attorney Lambdin Milligan, the subject of a famous U.S. Supreme Court case that limited the use of military tribunals to try civilians accused of crime.

Accomplishments: As a popular founder of the Grand Army of the Republic, a Civil War veterans advocacy group with many Hoosier members, Chase was an easy consensus pick for lieutenant governor in 1888, and helped Alvin Hovey win election as governor.

When Hovey died nearly three years into his term, Chase succeeded him and took on the role of a caretaker governor.

Like Hovey, he had difficulties working with the Democratic-controlled General Assembly and was unsuccessful in his advocacy for alcohol prohibition and increased spending on roads.

He even failed to win the full $135,000 appropriation he sought to fund the Indiana Pavilion at the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago, getting just $50,000 for the exhibit.

The Indiana Republican Party tried to deter Chase from running in 1892 for a full term as governor, fearing that his appeal would be limited to churchgoers and temperance supporters. Indeed, Chase often used campaign stops to deliver both political speeches and sermons in the same town on the same day.

Despite the presence of Republican Hoosier President Benjamin Harrison at the top of the 1892 ballot, Chase was defeated (as was Harrison).

Chase returned to his ministry after leaving office and died while preaching in Maine.

Other offices held: State representative, 1877-78; secretary of state, 1891-93

Accomplishments: Economic and political forces largely outside his control doomed Matthews to a four-year term filled with unrest.

Shortly after taking office, the Panic of 1893 crashed the U.S. economy causing high unemployment, railroad bankruptcies, business failures, farm price declines and bank closures. It also prompted labor conflicts.

Matthews deployed the state militia to break up western Indiana coal strikes and to reopen rail lines in Hammond seized by strikers protesting conditions at the nearby Pullman Palace Car Co. Since the Legislature was not in session at the time, Matthews personally borrowed $41,000 to pay the troops. He later was reimbursed by the state.

His relationship with the Legislature soured after the 1894 election when voters punished Democrats for the state of the economy and elected the first Republican-controlled General Assembly in two decades.

GOP lawmakers immediately rescinded the Democratic-drawn 1893 redistricting map and enacted one that favored Republicans. (It was later struck down by the Supreme Court.) They also sought to take away the gubernatorial appointment powers that Democratic lawmakers restored when Matthews took office.

Matthews vetoed the bill stripping him of his appointment powers minutes before the Legislature adjourned in 1895, but Republicans blocked the governor's messenger from delivering it to the House Speaker. That prompted fistfights between Republican and Democratic lawmakers that reportedly lasted a half-hour before order was restored. Matthews did not regain his appointment authority.

During his term, Matthews also successfully cracked down on horse racing and prize fighting in Lake County, notwithstanding the offer of a $500 bribe for the House clerk to "lose" the racetrack bill before the governor could sign it.

Matthews was a Democratic contender for U.S. president in 1896 but eventually lost on the fifth ballot at the Chicago convention to William Jennings Bryan, whose "Cross of Gold" speech put Democrats squarely on the side of less restrictive monetary controls.

Accomplishments: Paired with a Republican Legislature and a growing economy four years after the Panic of 1893, Mount accomplished far more than his immediate predecessors as Indiana's chief executive.

In 1897, he enacted the first compulsory school attendance law for children ages 8-14. He also approved measures from the national progressive agenda regulating big business, worker health and safety, food and drug quality and medical licensing.

Hoosier prisoners first got the chance at parole during Mount's term in office.

Mount was governor during the Spanish-American War, and fought with the U.S. War Department to ensure two all-black Indiana regiments would be led by black officers. The black Hoosier troops never saw battle in the short conflict, but the federal government did eliminate its requirement that white officers always command black soldiers.

In 1899, Mount was at the center of a curious episode in Kentucky politics.

Republican William Taylor appeared to have won election as governor over Democrat William Goebel, though Kentucky Democrats were investigating claims of voter fraud. During their appeal, Goebel was shot as he entered the Kentucky Statehouse and died a few days later.

Taylor was indicted for complicity in Goebel's murder, but fled to Indiana, where Mount, a fellow Republican, refused to extradite Taylor back to Kentucky. Indeed, Taylor remained in Indiana and became an insurance executive.

The burdens of being governor wore on Mount, who wanted to get back to farming, and he proclaimed his last day in office "the happiest day of my life."

It happened to be one of the last days of his life. Mount died two days after his term as governor expired.

Accomplishments: A businessman who believed government should operate on business principles, Durbin largely would find a familiar place in today's Republican Party.

In his inaugural address, Durbin explained that he believed "each taxpayer is like a stockholder in state government" and pledged to run the state as a business, free of any partisan bias.

His policy agenda largely mirrored national progressives by opposing the consolidation of railroads, favoring harsh punishment for voter fraud, and endorsing innovations in government, such as creating Indiana's first juvenile court in 1903.

The increasing popularity of automobiles during his term prompted Durbin to ask the General Assembly regulate the speed and manner in which cars were driven.

Durbin is perhaps best known for his efforts to eliminate lynching and other vigilante justice. Between 1865 and 1903, 41 whites and 20 blacks were lynched in Indiana. An 1899 law, requiring a county sheriff to contact the governor for military assistance if a lynching was threatened, was not followed by either the sheriffs or Gov. Mount, and four black men were lynched in 1900.

Durbin used the law in 1902 to remove the Sullivan County sheriff after he handed a black man over to a lynch mob. However, when he deployed the National Guard to prevent an Evansville lynching in 1903, the soldiers were taunted and shot at by locals. Guardsmen and county deputies eventually fired back, killing 11 members of the mob and ending the threat.

Durbin worried about the popularity of mob rule and expressed concern that American democracy risked falling under the "sway of that dictator who proves himself to be the best leader of mobs."

He returned to his businesses after leaving office, though he kept a toe dipped in Indiana politics, fighting against Gov. Thomas Marshall's proposed new state constitution in 1911.

Durbin was nominated for governor again in 1912 by a bitterly divided Republican Party, but came in third place.

Accomplishments: One of Indiana's most controversial governors, Hanly came into office with a chip on his shoulder toward the Democrats, whose 1890s redistricting plan caused him to lose his U.S. House seat.

He declared Hoosier Democrats "without constructive ability" and seeking power "for unholy and partisan purposes" — sentiments apparently shared by the Hoosiers who elected him governor in a landslide, along with GOP House and Senate supermajorities.

Obsessed with eliminating vice in pursuit of Christian virtue, Hanly crusaded against alcohol, horse racing and gambling. The latter was prompted in part by the discovery that the GOP state auditor, secretary of state and adjutant general used state funds to pay personal gambling debts at an illegal casino in French Lick owned by Thomas Taggart, chairman of the Democratic National Committee.

The fight for alcohol prohibition dominated much of Hanly's term.

He was determined to give each county the option of voting itself dry, and called for a special session of the General Assembly three weeks before the 1908 elections to make that happen. Democrats declared the special session unconstitutional, but GOP lawmakers passed the local-option statute anyway. Its biggest effect was to swing the next two gubernatorial elections to the Democrats.

Hanly separately approved the nation's first eugenics law, providing for the forced sterilization of Hoosiers with mental health issues and others in state custody. That law was declared unconstitutional by the Indiana Supreme Court in 1921.

After leaving office, Hanly joined numerous groups, including the Anti-Saloon League and the Flying Squadron of America, working to enact nationwide alcohol prohibition.

Hanly ran, unsuccessfully, as the Prohibition Party candidate for U.S. president in 1916.

Accomplishments: Hard work, political savvy and a lot of luck propelled Marshall into the governor's office, despite never having previously held elective office.

The northeast Indiana lawyer was typical for his time, joining numerous local and statewide community groups where he built a reputation as quick-witted, smart and engaging (despite occasionally drinking too much in a state filled with prohibitionists).

Hoosier Democrats, led by Thomas Taggart, turned to Marshall, long a loyal party man, as a compromise candidate after the 1908 convention deadlocked on selecting a nominee for governor. Marshall inherited a state convulsing under a rapid economic change from agricultural to industrial production, seen perhaps most vividly in the newly created company town of Gary, home to the vast U.S. Steel mills.

At the time, Indiana lagged most other states in public health, worker safety and infrastructure. Social and charitable groups could not keep up with the needs of thousands of newcomers from the South and across the ocean. To cope, Marshall helped enact a child labor ban, weekly wage law, regulations on railroads and telephones and an employer liability statute. He also created the State Board of Accounts to audit the revenue and spending of state agencies and local governments.

Historians now say that's about as progressive as Hoosiers were prepared to go in the early 20th century. Nevertheless, Marshall tried to take it a step further by proposing a new state constitution that he and his next-door neighbor wrote together. It allowed for voter initiative, referendum and recall, though simultaneously restricted voter rights to long-term Indiana residents and required voters pay a poll tax. Marshall's constitution also would have increased the size of the five-member Supreme Court and 100-member House of Representatives.

He presented his constitution to the Democratic-controlled Legislature, which approved it and sent it to voters for ratification. Republicans cried foul, claiming a constitutional convention is the only way to replace the state's governing charter, a position upheld by the Indiana Supreme Court before Hoosiers could vote on whether to adopt the Marshall constitution.

Debate over the ideas in his constitution raised Marshall's national profile, and he considered running for U.S. president in 1912. When New Jersey Gov. Woodrow Wilson got the Democratic nomination, Taggart helped engineer Marshall's position as Wilson's running mate.

Marshall was well regarded as vice president before, during and after World War I, though he was not particularly close to Wilson. After the president suffered a debilitating stroke in 1919, Wilson aides conspired to cover-up his illness to prevent Marshall from trying to become president.

Marshall also was known in Washington for his sense of humor, including numerous quips about his home state. Among them, "Indiana is the mother of vice presidents; home of more second-class men than any other state."

Upon his death in 1925, U.S. Secretary of State Frank Kellogg said of Marshall, he "was a man of sterling ability and the highest character and won the respect of everyone whom he knew."

Accomplishments: A Republican reformer, in the mold of future Gov. Mitch Daniels, Goodrich ultimately was unable to convince a Republican-controlled Legislature to give up control of patronage jobs and reform Indiana's tax code.

Declaring his goal as governor was to improve the "efficiency and economy" of state government, Goodrich began by trying to change how Indiana assessed property taxes. He believed it was unfair that farmers shouldered most of the property tax burden when intangible personal and business property, like vehicles, went untaxed. The General Assembly, however, could not be persuaded to enact a property excise tax on Hoosiers who didn't own land.

Goodrich's attempt to go over lawmakers' heads by calling for a constitutional convention on taxes (just a few years after Hoosier voters rejected that idea) was stuck down in the courts. Similarly, his efforts to eliminate and consolidate government jobs went nowhere, and he faced virulent criticism for that effort from Democratic-leaning newspaper publishers who anticipated a future Democratic governor would want to fill those posts with loyal party supporters.

Goodrich was governor during most of the American involvement in World War I. In that capacity, he strove to ensure the huge number of deployed Hoosiers were taken care of overseas and after they returned home. He also fought against anti-German bigotry during the war, including the changing of German street names, discrimination against Hoosiers of German ancestry and occasional violence. Goodrich was unsuccessful in stopping enactment of a statute prohibiting the teaching of the German language in Indiana schools.

He may have been more successful as governor had he not suffered two significant health crises in office. In 1917, Goodrich was laid-up for six months after contracting typhoid on a state prison visit. One year later, his vehicle was hit by a streetcar and Goodrich nearly killed. He suffered a broken hip, skull fracture, cracked ribs and a broken collarbone. Goodrich recovered, but was forced to walk with a cane the rest of his life.

In 1919, Indiana ratified proposed amendments to the U.S. Constitution banning alcohol consumption and providing women the right to vote. Goodrich signed both of those ratification decrees.

During his term, he also established the Indiana State Highway Commission that designated the initial routes of state highways and charged the renamed Indiana Historical Bureau with compiling a county-by-county history of Hoosier involvement in WWI.

After leaving office, Goodrich was tapped by Republican presidents to investigate the new Soviet Union, and he made four trips to Moscow for meetings with Vladimir Lenin, Josef Stalin, Leon Trotsky and other Soviet leaders. He recommended the United States recognize the USSR, but that wouldn't happen until 1933.

Goodrich's personal business interests dominated his post-gubernatorial life and he amassed a small fortune as an early investor in telephone, seed company, grain elevator, utility, newspaper and bank stocks.

Accomplishments: The first governor who could be said to have come from Northwest Indiana also was the first to resign minutes before being sentenced to 10 years in federal prison.

McCray's term began on a somewhat happier note as the United States was at peace, but the economy was struggling to reorient itself following demobilization after World War I. A farm price depression hit hard the personal interests of McCray, a nationally-known cattle dealer, but Indiana remained in relatively good shape.

In fact, McCray advocated the Legislature do less, following two decades of progressive policymaking, and vowed to cut spending on all but necessary items, including 87 new state and school buildings. He also made an exception for construction of the Lincoln Highway, authorizing the state's first gasoline tax to pay for road building.

McCray's term coincided with the rise of the Ku Klux Klan in Indiana. The governor was not a member of the white supremacist, anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic secret society, but at least half the General Assembly was comprised of Klansmen, as were several other officials, including GOP Secretary of State Ed Jackson.

McCray opposed Jackson's decision to provide the Klan a state charter and unsuccessfully sought help in denying the charter from the attorney general (another Klansman). His opposition to the Klan drew the organization's enmity, especially after the millionaire governor rejected Jackson's offer of a $10,000 bribe from Klan leader D.C. Stephenson if McCray would fill more state offices with Klan members.

The Klan finally decided to bring down McCray after he vetoed a plan for a Klan Day at the Indiana State Fair, complete with nighttime cross-burning.

However, McCray already had sewn the seeds of his destruction. Forced to borrow money to keep his Newton County cattle auction business intact, the governor obtained a $155,000 loan from the State Agricultural Board that he deposited in his personal bank account. He also wrote fraudulent promissory notes to numerous banks and threatened to pull state deposits from those institutions if they revealed his fraud.

McCray was indicted in Marion County for embezzlement of state funds, even though his friends had repaid the loan. His trial ended in a hung jury.

But federal prosecutors then convicted McCray of using the mail to send his fraudulent promissory notes, and he was sentenced to 10 years in prison, though he only served three.

Accomplishments: The resignation of Gov. McCray with nearly nine months remaining in his term, and the jostling to succeed him already underway, made Branch a caretaker chief executive.

He saw his primary task as restoring confidence in the governor's office with his predecessor headed to federal prison. Branch did so by ordering a top-to-bottom review of the operations of the executive branch.

He also committed to carrying on McCray's policy agenda of improving schools and roads, providing health care to children and expanding the state prison system.

Separately, Branch requested increased funding to improve railroad crossings and reduce the high number of train-car crashes, as well as establish a permanent home for the Indiana School for the Blind.

Branch, a Spanish-American War veteran, resumed his legal practice after his short term as governor ended. He later was owner of several businesses and farms in Morgan County.

Accomplishments: The most notorious Indiana governor due to his affiliation with the Ku Klux Klan, Jackson nearly was forced from office and remains something of a pariah to this day.

Unlike Republican Gov. Warren McCray, who resisted the Klan's growing influence in the state GOP, Jackson embraced the racist organization and allied himself with Klan leader D.C. Stephenson. However, fearing that might cost him votes in the 1924 election, Jackson disguised his bigotry by campaigning on a platform of "civil and religious liberty for Jews, Catholics and blacks."

The state's massive Klan membership helped propel Jackson to an overwhelming victory, and with a Republican-controlled General Assembly (at least half of whom were fellow Klansmen) Jackson looked to be in a position to enact any policy he wished. But conflicts between Stephenson and the national Klan organization caused rifts among Hoosier Republicans, diminishing Jackson's effectiveness.

The key issue during his term actually was Prohibition. The United States officially went "dry" in 1920, but it was up to each state to decide how strictly the ban on alcohol was enforced. Prompted by the Indiana Anti-Saloon League, Jackson in 1925 signed the "Bone Dry Law," increasing penalties for anyone caught consuming alcohol and barring even the medicinal sale of whiskey in the state.

When Jackson's wife, Lydia, was ill, the governor asked the attorney general to procure some medicinal whiskey for her, as the attorney general previously had for his own children. Revelation of the alcohol consumption prompted a minor scandal that diminished Jackson's standing as governor.

He soon was engulfed in a major scandal after Stephenson was convicted of raping and murdering a Statehouse employee, Madge Oberholtzer, who killed herself with poison purchased in Hammond after Stephenson assaulted her on a train ride to Chicago.

The Klan leader demanded his friend, the governor, pardon his crime and prevent him from serving a life term in prison. Jackson refused, and a furious Stephenson leaked to the press the details of Klan control of Indiana government, including the bribe Jackson offered Gov. McCray on the Klan's behalf while Jackson served as secretary of state.

Despite widespread calls for Jackson to resign, he remained in office and fought the corruption charges brought against him.

In the end, Jackson prevailed when it was determined the statute of limitations on his crimes had expired.

After his term as governor ended, Jackson tried to run his own law office in Indianapolis but struggled to find clients. He eventually moved to Orange County, where he raised cattle and operated an apple orchard.

Other offices held: U.S. High Commissioner to the Philippines, 1937-39, 1945-46; U.S. Federal Security Agency director, 1940-42; U.S. War Manpower Commission, 1942-44; U.S. Ambassador to the Philippines, 1946-47

Accomplishments: Just as the nation elected Democrat Franklin Roosevelt president in 1932, so too did Hoosiers decide to combat the ongoing Great Depression by ending nearly two decades of Republican control of the governor's office.

McNutt, a popular Indiana University law school professor and national commander of the American Legion, helped in this regard, campaigning ceaselessly for Democrats (and eventually himself) for two full years prior to the election. He focused the race on tax reform and economy in government, and insisted the only way to end the Depression was to get rid of every Republican officeholder.

He nearly succeeded, with Democrats in 1932 winning the governor's office, all 12 of Indiana's congressional seats, a U.S. Senate seat and margins of 43-7 in the state Senate and 91-9 in the House.

Taking an expansive view of the role of governor, McNutt reorganized the executive branch, consolidating 168 state agencies and commissions into eight departments; claimed the power to appoint any non-elected state employee; and centralized control in the governor's office. He enacted the state's first income tax and imposed a gross receipts tax on businesses, which helped turn a $3.4 million state deficit into a $17 million surplus.

McNutt reduced the power of utility companies by establishing an office of the consumer advocate (initially future U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sherman Minton) to fight for lower rates. He also effectively implemented national New Deal relief programs in Indiana, providing work to jobless Hoosiers and hope for those struggling for years during the Depression.

McNutt's patronage powers did raise eyebrows as state employees were essentially required to belong to the governor's "Two Percent Club," and kick back 2 percent of their wages to the Indiana Democratic Party. Following the 1933 repeal of Prohibition, McNutt also saw to it that loyal Democrats got the limited number of beer distributor licenses.

In 1935, McNutt's willingness to call out the National Guard to quell labor strikes earned him the nickname "Hoosier Hitler."

McNutt considered challenging Roosevelt for president in 1936. He was dissuaded after Roosevelt appointed him High Commissioner for the Philippines, where he helped Jewish refugees find homes after they were rejected for entry to the United States.

In 1940, McNutt was sure it was his time to be president, but Roosevelt's successful bid for a third term derailed his ambitions once again. During World War II, McNutt served in a variety of federal posts.

President Harry Truman sent McNutt back as the first U.S. ambassador to the Philippines in 1946 after the island nation regained its sovereignty following the war.

McNutt later worked as lawyer in New York City and Washington, D.C. He is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.